Wondering why your street hasn’t been plowed yet? The City of Spokane has a method

SPOKANE, Wash. — If you ventured out onto the streets of Spokane on Saturday, you might have noticed that driving conditions weren’t as bad as anticipated.

That’s because snow plow crews have been working around the clock to clean the roads.

The City of Spokane initiated its first full-city plow of the season on Friday.

The goal is to clear every single street in the city, which can take time. That means some areas are getting help sooner than others.

Peter Cooper says he’s been shoveling snow in Browne’s Addition for seven years.

“Yeah, I’m surprised they were able to make it last night,” said Cooper.

In the last few years, he said it took the plows days to clean their roads.

“It’s been kind of a last place, at the end of the road, last on their list,” Cooper said. He added that he thinks the smaller streets are a problem.

The City said they’ve been utilizing smaller equipment to plow smaller strets.

“We even had some pickup trucks with some plows on them,” said City spokesperson Marlene Feist. “Different things we’ve been experimenting with to try and make plows in different areas in the city work better.”

Those in the Comstock area, along with Cannon Hill, haven’t been that lucky.

Just ask Stoddard Hodgson, who spent Friday night and the next morning clearing sidewalks and driveways for his neighbors.

“See, everybody gets done except me. I’m last,” said Hodgson.

He says he doesn’t mind.

“This happened last night,” said Hodgson. “They can’t wave a magic wand and make the streets vanish.”

He’s right- and the City says they do what they can to plow the roads. Main roads are their priority, then the neighborhoods.

“We want to make sure that once people get to an arterial, people can get where they need to go safely,” said Feist. “They’re systematically working their way through the neighborhoods.”

Meaning they’ll take care of the hills first, then head to the neighborhoods that are flatter.

Grant Pfiefer lives in the Cannon, Manito area. He said his roads got plowed last night, estimating about 12 hours earlier than what they’ve seen in the past few years.

“It’s great. The city does a great job and I really appreciate it,” Pfiefer said.

Feist said this snow storm was easy to prepare for, because they knew it was going.

“The challenge with snow is – even when you know it’s coming, at some point you have to wait for it to come. In a sense, snow is always reactive. There has to be enough snow on the ground for you to be able to plow it,” Feist said, adding that crews are always out there deicing and sanding until there’s enough to plow.

To learn more about how the City plows it’s streets, which ones take priority or see a live look at what streets they’re taking care of – visit their website here.

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