In the Dec. 28 issue of the Olean Times Herald, Christopher Michel writes, “In case you missed it — winter is here.” I would like to add, “In case you missed it — snow plows missed Charles Street.”
To add to the misery of residents on our street, when the plows went by on East State Street they plowed an embankment of snow across the entrance to Charles Street, creating a very dangerous situation.
When attempting to drive through the never-plowed Charles toward East State, if one stopped to see if any cars were approaching on East State, his or her car would get stuck in the embankment. A constant speed was necessary to get through. Imagine trying to do that with cars coming 35 mph on East State.
Adding to that, more days passed and more snow fell, and the city plow still did not come. Finally, someone showed up three days late, not to remove the snow from the street, but only to back-plow it, spreading it out more. The truck did not push most of the snow toward the curb, leaving icy ruts 6 inches deep that were still in place as of the first week in January.
In the Times Herald article, Scott Rotherleder, a senior street maintainer, stated, “And we hit every road hard, plowing and salting them. … Around 8 a.m., we had gone over every road at least once.”
He stated further that, “It was fun.” Except for the residents of Charles Street, that is. It was the only street in East Olean that I could find that was not plowed. Why not, when every other street was?
This is not the first time this has happened. A couple of years ago I called and complained about the lack of plowing on our street. When a city plow finally came, it merely back-plowed, creating the same type of ruts as occurred several days ago.
For those not familiar with “back-plowing,” the driver goes to the end of the street with the plow up. Then, with the plow down, he puts the truck in reverse and drives backwards toward the main road. This only spreads the snow out and it pushes very little snow toward the curb.
What I don’t understand is why they do not turn in the large car lot on the corner of East State and Charles, back all the way to the end of Charles, and then plow forward to East State in the normal way, pushing the snow curbside. Is backing in and to the end of Charles Street harder to do than backing out of it and onto East State?
Garbage truck drivers do exactly that, if needed. Why can’t a snow plow driver?
If city drivers cannot back their trucks in reverse, or cannot drive backwards to the end of the street and then plow forward, they can come down to 115 Charles with the plow up, pull into my driveway, back out and then plow the street the right way, pushing the snow curbside. If there is snow still left in the plow, simply turn onto East State and deposit it along East State’s curbside.
The way it’s done now, it doesn’t make any sense for those of us who are living here — and it isn’t funny.
Incidentally, just before I sent this in, a New York state worker used a frontloader to plow all of Charles Street, and he properly piled up the snow out of the way near East State Street.
Of course, the city has such vehicles to do exactly that, and to rid all of the rest of Olean of snow — but not for Charles Street.
(Mr. Cappelletti lives in Olean.)
