Mayor Peduto Thanks Road Crews As Another Round Of Snow Moves In

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's a simple thank you from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.

"We've got coffee from Point Breeze, doughnuts from Bloomfield," Mayor Peduto said.

He wanted to show his appreciation to the Pittsburgh Public Works employees who've been sacrificing sleep and their weekend to make sure the roads are safe when snow starts to fall.

On Friday night, about 35 trucks were out plowing and salting the road.

"We just finished up hour number 20," said Guy Costa, the city's chief operations officer. "Since the storm began, we've had crews out all night."

Mayor Peduto joined with Costa on Saturday to point out all the hard work that's been done in the past 24 hours and all winter long - from plowing to salting and patching up potholes.

The newly elected mayor shook hands and assured crews that the city has their backs.

"Number one, you have the equipment you need to do your job; and number two, we're working as a team," he said.

Mayor Peduto also touched upon this week's three-day "pothole blitz" where people were encouraged to call the 311 hotline to streamline the system, taking a page out of New York City's successful efforts in making their system more efficient.

"Everything we're doing we're measuring and testing, measuring and testing," he said. "We're just trying to find the areas where there's critical need for additional resources and where things might have been missed in the past to be able to address it."

Mayor Peduto says 1,500 calls were fielded, and more than 260 potholes repaired.

Also, because of the cold temperatures, police are checking on the area homeless and the city is also working with animal control officers to make sure any pets left outside have a warm place to spend the night.

RELATED LINKS:
More Reports on the Pothole Blitz
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