Are you sick of ice-slicked streets?
Is the gray sludge on sidewalks getting you down?
Are your arms stiff from repeatedly clearing snow off your car with that stupid plastic scraper you bought at Walgreens?
You’re so not alone.
As expected, Chicago winter is turning expressways into ice rinks, front steps into snow drifts and pavement into a pitted mess more appropriate on the moon. But what hasn’t been expected: record snowfall and cold in December and what one city official called an “explosion” of potholes. The high forecast for Thursday is 2 degrees below zero, and that doesn’t factor in the wind.
This is hands down the snowiest winter in almost a decade, according to WGN’s chief meteorologist, Tom Skilling. As of Tuesday, it snowed approximately 38.3 inches at O’Hare, about 2 inches more than the amount that usually falls over an entire season, Skilling said.
“This season is reminiscent of terrible mid-’70s winters, the benchmark for horrible snow and temperatures,” Skilling said. “There have only been 21 colder winters in 139 years.”
That’s right, locals. You’re no winter wimps. This season is one bad mother.
As a result, some locals are on the extreme end of anti-winter sentiment, compounded by a recent — and, as of last week, abandoned — city effort to conserve snow-fighting resources by skimping on some side street removal. Some are even mulling a move out of the city.
Rod Yusko of the West Loop has survived 15 Chicago winters but doesn’t know if he can go for sweet 16. This after a “monster” pothole took out his already ailing 1991 Ford Tempo, Yusko said.
“My [wheel] alignment got completely messed up,” Yusko, 38, said of a recent run-in with a series of potholes at Western Avenue and Division Street. “I hit two or three holes in a 10-second succession. I’m going to have to get a new car. It’s not even worth a repair.”
The seeming death blow to Yusko’s Ford might be on the extreme end, but so many other winter woes abound.
So RedEye got out our figurative shovels and dug deep into this whole wintry mess: snow-clogged alleys, pothole problems and the question of why the city and state can’t, well, speed the plow.
Side hustle
In December, residents and some local aldermen unleashed their ire when the city experimented with waiting for regular business hours before plowing side streets, instead focusing much of the manpower on the arterial streets including Western Avenue, Halsted Street and King Drive. Residents were asked to call in to 311 with side-street snow gripes.
The shift in side-street approach was an attempt to save resources by reducing overtime labor costs, but early this month the Daley administration put the kibosh on the conservation effort, the Tribune reported.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out very well,” Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Michael Picardi told aldermen at a hearing Jan. 6, attended by the Tribune. “So, we should expect then a significant increase in service on side streets in future snows.”
Still, don’t expect to see side streets as clean as major thoroughfares, said Department of Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith.
He said side streets aren’t wide enough to accommodate plows nor is there enough through traffic to activate the salt. Parked cars pose a problem for plows too, Smith said. “The snow plow isn’t whisking snow away, it’s pushing it to the sides, so we could actually cover cars if we aren’t careful,” he said, adding that he isn’t above the fray and often cleans his family’s cars after extreme snowfall.
“Plus, we don’t want to get too close and take off people’s fenders and doors.”
Holey war
Potholes are the bane of his existence, Chatham’s Chris Louis said, but at least they are improving his athleticism.
“If there was a competitive pothole slalom league, I would be successful,” Louis, 30, said, citing what he called the particularly pocked intersection of 61st Street and Woodlawn Avenue. “I get around these craters, but once I memorize [the] potholes [in] them, there are new ones.”
Louis isn’t exaggerating the pothole problem in the city, according to stats provided by the Chicago Department of Transportation, which reveal crater action all over the city. In the first eight days of January, the city filled more than 30,000, CDOT spokesman Brian Steele said. But like “Bond” sequels, they just keep coming back.
Count them up. There were more than 4,000 open potholes logged in the system as of Tuesday, Steele said. His department receives pothole reports from residents via 311 and uses that data to create a virtual map to show a “current pothole picture.”
That picture ain’t pretty, according to Steele, who said 311 receives an average of 200 to 300 calls a day. The number has jumped as high as 500.
But there are reparations for riled up motorists — kinda sorta. The city will partially reimburse you for pothole damage if you file a complaint to the city clerk’s office up to one year from the date of the incident, the Tribune reported, adding that pothole victims can download the form from chicityclerk.com, describe the damage and file a police report.
Photos of the damage could help, a Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman said. Those who have repaired their vehicles should enclose a bill, and those who have not should include at least two estimates in order to be reimbursed up to $2,000 for half the damage, the Tribune advised.
Why just half? The other portion of the responsibility is on the driver, according to Steele, who said you have a chance to avoid incidents by driving slowly and carefully in cratered areas.
Speed the plow
West Loop’s Yusko would like to know why, during one of the first big winter storms last month, city snow plows seemed to move at a snail’s pace. He remembers one particular snowy night on Dec. 16 when he took the CTA, and street traffic was so slow that he got off, walked, and still beat the bus to its destination.
“I think they’re doing OK in the aftermath,” Yusko said of the city’s snow removal efforts from December and to date. “I think their preparation needs to be a little better. No, much better.”
It wasn’t much better for drivers, according to South Sider Melvin Jefferson, who said his 20-minute commute from downtown to his home off the 79th Street exit stretched to 120 minutes.
“It was a fiasco,” Jefferson said, adding that the city’s latest snow removal efforts have been less than impressive.
Smith begs to differ. He said the city regularly staffs 274 snow-fighting trucks, informally known as “The 300,” in a nod to the box office smash. Those trucks, despite the “hardworking drivers” aboard them, can move only as fast as traffic, Smith said. On top of that main fleet, the city deploys 24 smaller plows, which tackle narrow side streets. Garbage trucks, too, can join in the snow-fighting fun by attaching 200 quick-hitch plows to the vehicles, Smith said.
Despite the show of force, the speed will not change if traffic is slow, according to Smith.
It’s the same story for plows on the expressways, according to Illinois Department of Transportation spokeswoman Marisa Kollias, who said the vehicles travel approximately 45 mph, but can be much slower in heavy traffic.
“Neither the city nor the state can clear rush hour traffic, so if everyone is moving 1 mph because of snow conditions, we can only move that fast,” Smith said.
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kkyles@tribune.com
