DDOT: We’ll Get to Side Streets Before Other Jurisdictions
"If not today, it'll be tomorrow."
That's the promise of John Lisle, a spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) in a long-ranging interview this morning with City Desk. Lisle was referring to DDOT's sked for hitting the residential streets with plows and salt and so on.
The city's snow-removal operation, said Lisle, is finishing out its assault on the main arteries and preparing to move all that equipment into the neighborhoods. That's going to be good news for Joe D.C. Taxpayer, who up to now has seen a light touch by work crews on the lesser-traveled streets. According to Lisle, the city is divided into 82 neighborhood plowing zones, and each one is assigned its own light truck equipped with a plow. And given the enormity of this one-two punch over the last six days, that one light truck per rezzy zone has been overwhelmed.
Not only will equipment from the main routes get diverted to the rezzy streets over the next 24 hours, but DDOT is supplementing its fleet via contracting. Lisle said that some heavy-equipment mogul in Massachusetts pulled his name and number off the Internet and is offering to come down with some rigs. "People are out to make some money," says Lisle, noting that the city is deploying light and heavy plows, front-end loaders, backhoes, and Bobcats to get the job done.
Other key points:
*If your car is parked in an alley, you have a choice: Wait for spring or hire your own contractor. The city does not clear alleys, says Lisle, except for a few in which people live in carriage houses. The reasons for the no-alley-plowing are several: 1) Resources; 2) Alleys are too narrow to accommodate the snow that gets pushed around; 3) There are extreme liability questions—if you try to plow the alley, you're bound to sideswipe a few cars and a stray garage door.
*People are all over the map in terms of their feedback on the city's snow-removal performance. Says Lisle: "We’ve gotten some great positive feedback from people who appreciate all the hard work...and negative feedback from people whose street hasn't been plowed or plowed enough."
*Matthews wasn't totally off the mark. When asked if he'd heard about the remarks of MSNBC's Chris Matthews slamming the District's snow removal, Lisle said he'd seen a tweet about the matter. Here's, in part, what Matthews said: "Why can't a government town do a government job? It looked like Siberia without the Siberian discipline. We had the weather of Buffalo with the snowplowing capability of Miami." When apprised of that slight, Lisle showed a dimension that Matthews didn't: reasoned thinking. The District, said Lisle, sure doesn't have the equipment of a Buffalo when it comes to cleaning up after a winter storm. Nor is it as unprepared as a Miami. "We're in the middle," he says. "We plan for this year-round. Our crews have been working nonstop 12 hour shifts round the clock for six days straight. I can understand the individual frustration...I think that if you look at the city overall, I think we’ve done a great job."
Photograph by Darrow Montgomery
11:03 am
I'm not holding my breath to see a plow on my street until sometime over the weekend.
11:41 am
The side streets weren't even plowed the last time. Who is DDOT trying to kid?
1:57 pm
My block hasn't been plowed at all. It was the only street in my neighborhood (Cleveland Park) not plowed after the first storm, and we haven't seen a plow after the second, either. The snow in the street is a 3-4 feet high, iced-over mess.
This means that we haven't gotten mail since Friday, though other streets in our immediate neighborhood are receiving deliveries. Is DDOT going to replace tax information that I don't receive, or pay late fees on bills that come a week late?
2:18 pm
Chris Matthews was totally on track for slamming Fenty for his selective snow removal process!
My street has yet to be plowed from blizzard 1 or 2, and I live off a major thoroughfare in downtown, N.W.
My parents live three blocks from Fenty and their street hasn’t been plowed either, but of course, Fenty’s block is snowless!
3:17 pm
What do you expect when the head of the District's transportation department's "experience" is in boutique retail food-service. Not an OUNCE of experience in urban transportation systems management, snow management, civil engineering, etc., etc., etc.
I would say you get what you pay for, but in this case, you pay for it, the city just doesn't GET it.
If it walks like a Fenty cronny, talks like a Fenty cronny, is inexperienced like a Fenty cronny, then it is a Fenty Cronny.
4:51 pm
Gabe Klein had no experience in public transportation before being named Department head. he worked at smartcar or zipcar and ran a food cart. I mean, really? not that that differs from some of the Heads of other Fenty agencies, (are you under 40? clueless? YOU ARE IN! ) It should be no wonder that this cleanup is not going well.
4:58 pm
ward one resident--you plagarized my post! but that's ok! you added capital letters! next time add quotation marks!
5:34 pm
lol @ stellabloom
5:48 pm
Gabe Klien, an owner of Zipcar and On The Fly (food carts) promised the city council that he would recuse himself from ZipCar for the DDOT Directorship!
Why would the City Council confirm Klein, who had ABSOULETELY NO EXPERIENCE running a transportation department and presented an obvious conflict of interest due to D.C.'s plans to replace its fleet of cars with Klien’s ZipCars?
Fenty, along with the city council’s approval, gave Klien the perfect conflict of interest hook-up at DDOT, while the taxpayers suffer during Klien’s learning curve! ONLY IN DC ! ! !