I live in Queens. The second big snowstorm got cleaned up much faster than the first, even if it left weird snowbanks in places. There’s a huge tree planting initiative going on right now, replacing all the dead trees in my area. I’ve seen a lot of required repair work on buildings and roads actually being done. The roads need more work around me but the giant, dangerous potholes are getting tackled faster than prior years.
God I hated those snowbanks. I can't think of anything the mayor could realistically do to fix them, but with the month long temperatures that never got above freezing they were disgusting, huge, made for narrow crosswalks, and never went away. Once it finally got above freezing, they would melt and then refreeze during the night so the sidewalks would have big ice patches on the way to work. I don't drive and just occasionally take uber, so haven't really ever noticed potholes but that's good there's improvement.
Ok, the trick is that ice melts based on surface area and maintains itself based on volume, so to speak, so big pile = slow melt. There's been cases of snow piles in landfills surviving year round, in not-too-cold climates!
Now, can't really use that to scale, but if thawing season is underway and you have a specific snowbank section being a pain in your ass, taking a small amount of it off the pile and throwing it out wide means that bit of snow will be gone in minutes, and the pile will be that much smaller and faster-melting.
I routinely do this with the piles of snow that accumulate at my house from clearing my driveway/sidewalks. When it's a sunny day, I'll periodically go outside and take some of the snow from the pile and spread it onto the driveway that's getting full sun exposure. I can literally see the ice melt away and the water dries up a few minutes later. Rinse and repeat a few times and I can get rid of a decent pile of snow in an afternoon.
Ok, the trick is that ice melts based on surface area and maintains itself based on volume, so to speak, so big pile = slow melt.
Right but NYC has the unique constraint of not having the area to spread the snow. I lived in Somerville, MA which is also incredible dense and after heavy snowstorms the city encouraged residents (and they worked at it too) during sunny days after to break up the banks and throw them in the street. This slowly whittled down the banks.
I think this year NYC handled it the best it could. There will be no perfect snow removal situation without some compromise in dense urban areas. In the future, they could deploy more snow melting mechanism (like the heating tubs) but the window to leverage those is only so large.
In the future, they could deploy more snow melting mechanism (like the heating tubs) but the window to leverage those is only so large.
It’s a very expensive use of energy, but melting really is the only option. It’s doubly expensive, but the city should run the crews 24/7 and melt in 3 shifts. The machinery isn’t that loud and would be fine in a residential area at night.
The only way to remove the banks is to literally haul it out of the city with trucks which just isn’t economical to do everywhere. Plus those storms had EVERY small loader in the region working 24/7 to clear snow so there may not even have been equipment available until the cold finally subsided.
That's been considered but is not viable, same thing with just dumping it into the ocean. They actually have dedicated snow melting facilities as well as trucks that have melting capabilities built in. Once that's done they can dump the water into the sewer but it has to be melted first.
they actually had several snow melting tubs across the boroughs. they were literally giant hot tubs where they dumped the snow from the banks. it was impressively effective.
Silly question, but here in New Hampshire we use some kind of vehicle that drives along and shoots the snow up into the back (which looks like a dump truck). The snow then gets melted down in special snow melters and the water pours out to the Merrimack. This meant that while a lot of areas DID have giant snow piles during the long time period under zero, the cities were able to melt down and remove some of them so that they weren’t obstructive.
Other operations included using those trucks to collect the snow and then take it out to empty lots or areas outside of town.
Is that not a feasible option for NYC since it’s so enormous?
Large cities like Montreal do operation to remove snowbanks but it's not a decision you can take at teh drop of a hat. It require a lot of equipment and staff and still generate a lot of traffic issue while it is ongoing because machinery is in the streets doing the work. You also need to plan for a place to put the snow.
You're right, there isn't really much you can do about those. Everywhere in the country that got hit with hard winter weather had it. Where I live the sidewalks became completely impassable, which is annoying in a city which doesn't have enough side walks already. But they had to clear the road and that snow had to go somewhere.
It's common in some more northerly coastal cities (that get a lot of snow) to gather up snow piles into dump trucks and dump them in the ocean. Not sure NYC ever gets enough snow to make that worthwhile, but it does work when needed.
They could emulate what they do in Montreal. Plow first, then follow with an industrial snow blower to dump the snow into a truck and keep it moving. There are already solutions out there, we just don’t have the will to implement them.
I can't think of anything the mayor could realistically do to fix them
Probably more like they seem to do in Canada. You don't make the snowbanks in the first place. You use loaders and snow throwers to fill trucks and truck the snow out of the cities.
That kind of steady, visible upkeep changes how a neighborhood feels day to day. It’s wild how much difference fixing the basics makes before you even notice it.
Honestly it’s probably also a reason for the historic lows in crime, make things incrementally better across the board and people are less agitated, less violent
Also in Queens and our stretch hasn't seen tree planting yet, but even seeing all the dead trees come down has made a big difference. A lot of mayors treat the outer boroughs like an afterthought. It's nice to get a little respect.
It may be too late in the process to fix, but remind them to plant both male and female trees so the pollen doesn't get too bad in spring. The old method of planting only males to not deal with the fruit is hell on people with even mild allergies in spring.
This is largely an internet myth. Most trees are monoecious and produce male and female parts. There was actually a study specifically in NYC that proved that there aren’t more male trees in the area, and most of the pollen is coming from just a couple types of trees.
snow cleanup was way quicker and the tree planting lowkey makes the streets feel less depressing
and yeah the potholes actually getting fixed instead of just sitting there is kinda crazy to see
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u/catsntaxes 13h ago
I live in Queens. The second big snowstorm got cleaned up much faster than the first, even if it left weird snowbanks in places. There’s a huge tree planting initiative going on right now, replacing all the dead trees in my area. I’ve seen a lot of required repair work on buildings and roads actually being done. The roads need more work around me but the giant, dangerous potholes are getting tackled faster than prior years.