City Leaders Working To Fine-Tune New Snow Removal Plan

Follow KDKA-TV: Facebook | Twitter

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Pittsburgh city leaders are still dealing with complaints regarding snow removal after the most recent winter storm.

Pittsburgh Chief Operations Officer Guy Costa said the last few days have been busy for city workers plowing, salting and treating roads in the extreme cold.

With freezing temperatures overnight, they have to start over every day.

"We're back to salting and plowing the streets today. We'll continue doing that today. We're looking forward to tomorrow when we're going to see above freezing temperatures and the sun. We'll see a vast improvement tomorrow," Costa said.

On Tuesday, Mayor Bill Peduto said the city has to do a better job removing snow from city streets. Today, Costa will meet with Peduto.

"The City clearly needs to do a much better job addressing snow and ice on streets across Pittsburgh. Our workers did their best, working around the clock for days, but we need to give them and our residents the tools to provide better service and support in the future," Peduto said.

The criticism began when several residents complained their streets hadn't been cleared for days.

"We do know that we want to take a look at our routing system and revamp our routing system. Rather than have paper routes, we want to have routes that are on GPS telephones where our operators and our drivers know where the routes are so they don't miss a street," Costa said.

In addition to reviewing the routes and personnel concerns, Costa said a team will also look at what's being used to melt the snow.

Right now, it's a mix of rock salt and calcium chloride, which only works when it's 17 degrees or warmer.

"When it's less than 17 degrees, rock salt is ineffective. What we do is we add liquid calcium to it to enhance it, but unfortunately it's been so cold that anytime you get near zero or below zero, even liquid calcium doesn't work," Costa said.

He admits this isn't the norm.

"Again, this is extreme cold temperatures. It's a rarity for the City of Pittsburgh, but we're going to find ways to improve snow operations from here forward," he said.

It's a problem that has to be solved- sooner and not later.