Residents and onlookers sharply criticized the city of Pittsburgh last week after a Tuesday-morning rush-hour snowstorm paralyzed traffic. Though a storm Friday was expected to be an even bigger problem — forecasters called for half a foot in some areas — snowfall totals fizzled to a few inches and the flakes came down more gradually than they had earlier in the week.
For city snowplow driver James Boland, the gradual snowfall made the difference between the city’s seemingly laggardly reaction Tuesday and its more aggressive response at the end of the week. The timing of the storms was also a factor.
“When [the storm] hits at rush hour … there's nothing we can do" to get around traffic, he said. “We can't drive through the cars. And we're not the Jetsons: We can’t just fly over things.”
Mayor Ed Gainey’s office said high winds can also challenge the snow removal.
On Tuesday, drivers “were plowing the street and then those winds came in and it looked like they didn't touch it at all,” said Gainey spokesperson Olga George.
The city pretreated roads in the wee hours of the morning Friday, but Boland said even the effectiveness of salting roads before the storm depends on whether rain mixes in. “Now you’re dealing with the ice factor… [the plow] is not a knife. It’s not going to cut through everything,” he said.
WESA rode shotgun in Boland’s 10-ton plow truck as last week’s second blizzard fell during the morning rush hour. Boland had been out plowing and salting since 2 a.m. When asked why suburbs seem able to clear their roadways faster than the city, especially in residential areas, Boland said it’s unfair to compare the two.
"We’re dealing with wagon trails,” Boland said of the city’s narrow streets. “The boroughs are dealing with wide open streets, and most people have driveways.
“They’re not fighting the struggles that we fight."
As Boland made his way through his route in Beechview — home to some of the city’s steepest hills — he dodged parked cars and telephone poles on sharp turns. At times, Boland’s truck barely fit through the narrow city streets. On one block, a guardrail inches away was all that separated the truck from the edge of a cliff and Route 51 below.
Boland routinely has to execute 10-point turns to turn around at the end of dead-end residential streets. Sometimes there's no place to turn around at all, and he has to drive in reverse the entire way back up the street.
He noted that some suburban communities prohibit street parking between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. which leaves streets open for bigger vehicles.
“I'd love to get on a street with my plow wide open and not have to worry about a car on either side of me,” he said. “[But] there are obstacles everywhere.”
Boland works for the public works department's Fifth Division, which covers southern neighborhoods including Beechview, Crafton Heights and Mt. Washington. The division deployed four 10-ton trucks in addition to a half-dozen smaller dump and pickup trucks last Friday.
While it may seem like the city would do better to rely on smaller trucks for residential streets, Boland noted that their smaller carrying capacity means more trips to the salt dome.
‘I’ve been in yards’
Before he joined the city 12 years ago, Boland drove tractor trailers. He said he prefers the challenge of the snowplow on city streets over the long hauls on highways, even though it can be difficult.
“I thought [driving tractor trailers] was challenging,” Boland said. “This far outweighs that by any means.”
Among those challenges is how Pittsburgh’s topography doesn’t fit the typical grid design of an urban neighborhood. As streets wind upward through Pittsburgh’s hilly southern neighborhoods, drivers in areas like Beechview encounter hairpin turns and stomach-turning slopes.
Overcoming the fear of driving down Pittsburgh’s steep hills in the snow is a major part of the job, according to Boland. “Some guys never get over the fear of it,” he said.
Along Boustead Street, for example, the 29% grade is so steep and icy that Boland can’t stop his truck at the bottom of the hill. He plows past a stop sign, unable to slow down. Collisions are rare, but Boland has seen his share of risky situations.
“I've been in yards,” he said. “I've gone down hills and prayed that nobody was coming across the cross streets at the bottom of the hill.”
He said smaller trucks can sometimes dig out a landing spot for the bigger trucks.
“If it’s a steep hill, we’ll usually dry out a section, maybe 50 to 100 yards at the bottom of it,” he said. “So then when we go down, there’s something to hold onto at the very bottom.”
But in any case, experience does a lot to dissolve the fear of sliding down a hill, Boland said: “I’m a Pittsburgh driver so I’ve driven in the elements my whole life. They don’t bother me."
Boland argued the long winter hours are another issue that causes drivers to quit. Boland himself worked a 16-hour shift Friday — and was due back to work the next day at 6 a.m.
“Say you hired … five drivers. You might have two or three that actually can do the hard part of the job,” he said.
Help wanted
Public Works says the city hired a dozen new commercial drivers to run the big trucks ahead of this winter, and supplemented them with 40 new laborers to operate the smaller trucks.
Public Works director Chris Hornstein said the new hires have helped, but the city is always looking for CDL drivers.
There's another, perhaps larger, factor complicating the city’s snow-removal efforts: a desperate need for new trucks. The city’s fleet has fallen into rough shape after a years-long failure to invest in it. Boland ordinarily drives a 2013 truck, but it had been out for maintenance for a month before the snow fell last week. The truck WESA rode in was nearly 20 years old.
“It’s had its better days,” said Boland.
According to Hornstein, of the 106 trucks the city is supposed to be able to dispatch for snow removal, nearly 30 are offline for repairs. Friday’s response was managed by around 80 trucks citywide. Hornstein said ideally, he’d have 180 trucks to work with.
“That’s probably more a question for both the administration and city council,” he noted. The department is slated to get 10 new trucks among other vehicles in the 2024 capital budget.
Those problems are compounded in the city’s fourth public works division, which covers other southern neighborhoods like Carrick and Brookline. The division has been without a local public works facility since 2017, and trucks must drive in from outside the area before they can even begin clearing its streets.
But as WESA has reported, the city is in the final stages of awarding a construction contract for the project, which is estimated to break ground in the spring. Hornstein expects the facility to be usable by 2025.
‘Give us our space’
Though no additional snow is in the immediate forecast for Pittsburgh, there are still two to three months left of this year's winter season. For Hornstein and Boland, the plan is to take it storm by storm.
As for the Mayor’s office, spokesperson George said officials will continue to try to decrease the timeline for snow removal. The city previously promised all streets would be clear within 24 hours after a snowfall. Last week the Gainey administration upped the ante to 18 hours. But George doesn’t expect the criticism to stop anytime soon.
“We are used to people complaining,” George said. “Everyone wants their street plowed now.”
Boland is no stranger to that criticism. But as WESA rode along with him for the majority of the morning, smiles and waves from residents were constant.
“When people give you a thumbs up, it makes you know you’re doing something right,” he said. “These are the people that understand that the snow doesn’t disappear as soon as it hits the ground.”
If residents want to see trucks get through their neighborhoods faster, Boland has a word of advice: stay out of the way.
“You don't give us our space, it's going to take us longer to get roads open,” he said. “You give us our space, we'll get your roads open.”
