While city officials said no one area is favored when snow removal is needed, this week’s expected snow storm will send snow trucks to the North Side first.
While city officials said no one area is favored when snow removal is needed, this week’s expected snow storm will send snow trucks to the North Side first. “There is no one community that receives favoritism when it comes to snow removal. What does dictate where we start sometimes is the weather and this week’s snow storm is expected to hit the Northwest Side hard so that is where we will deploy trucks first,” Thomas Byrne, commissioner of the Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department, said at a Tuesday news conference. That means residents living on the West and South Sides will have to wait their turn in line while truck drivers begin plowing main streets and “vital” areas first before reaching side streets. Byrne said vital areas include schools, libraries, police and fire stations, and public buildings. “We will be plowing side streets but that will come after we do main streets and vital areas first,” Byrne told the Defender. “And we do not plow alleys.” Some residents living on the West and South Sides said each year their neighborhoods are last when it comes to snow removal. “My mother lives on the North Side and every year her block is plowed the first day we have a snow storm,” said Janice Smalls, 43, who lives in the Austin community on the West Side. “I live on the far West Side and snow trucks don’t usually reach that area until four or five days later.” Eric White, 34, lives the Englewood community on the South Side and said last year his block was never plowed even after calling the alderman and the city’s 311 Center. “I live at 59th and Carpenter and the city never sent a truck to our block even after I called them several times,” White recalls. “There are a lot of white folks who live on the North Side and they pay more taxes because they make more money, so the city makes them a priority over poor, Black communities.” However, Byrne disagreed. “We plow all areas of the city. If there are people who see their side streets are not being plowed then they should call 311 and report it because we do not favor any one community over the other.” The city has allotted $17 million to tackle snow this year and have 275 snow trucks available.
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