Pittsburgh looks to add more plows to address concerns about snow, ice removal

Pittsburgh is looking to address complaints about snow and ice removal by adding a dozen plows to its fleet.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that we just need more vehicles, more safely operating vehicles,” Councilman Anthony Coghill said, explaining that the measure would “help our fleet get up to the standards where it should be.”

A proposal to add the plows advanced out of committee last week and is expected to come up for a final vote Tuesday. The legislation, sponsored by Coghill, would reallocate more than $470,000 from the capital budget to buy six new snowplow trucks and rent six more for the rest of the winter season.

The city’s fleet is about twice as old as it should be, meaning vehicles are often out of service for maintenance, said Director of Management and Budget Jake Pawlak. The city last year ordered 17 additional snowplows to bolster the fleet, but global supply chain issues have delayed their delivery.

Pawlak said there is no estimated delivery date on that order. Council President Theresa Kail-Smith said city officials should investigate whether they can leave that contract and order the plows elsewhere because of the delay.

The six new plows that would be bought through the latest proposal are new Chevrolet pickups with plows and salt spreaders. The trucks are in Erie and could be shipped to Pittsburgh quickly, Pawlak said.

The vehicles the city plans to lease — four similar pickups and two Ford dump trucks with salt spreaders and plows — would “be available almost immediately,” Pawlak said. The city plans to lease them for two months.

The city plans to distribute the 12 vehicles evenly across the city.

The vehicles the city would buy would be put to other uses within the Department of Public Works in spring and summer months, Pawlak said.

The Department of Public Works now has more drivers than operational vehicles, Councilwoman Deb Gross said. Mayor Ed Gainey last week announced that the Department of Public Works has hired nine additional truck drivers and four laborers to increase staffing for the rest of the winter season.

“I call this a crisis in my district, because it’s just a matter of time before somebody slides down a hill and is seriously injured or killed,” Coghill said.

Some council members expressed concerns about reallocating funding for the plows, particularly for the leases.

Pawlak said the city would use money from a planned Saw Mill Run zoning study and revitalization of Leslie Park and several budget items that had unused, leftover money. He said the city would need to find new funding for the zoning study and park project.

Councilman Bruce Kraus said he didn’t like the idea of taking money from the capital budget for something as short-term as a two-month vehicle lease, and challenged Pawlak to find the money in the city’s operating budget instead.

Capital budget are typically used for projects with “longer-term return,” Kraus said.

“Even though what we’re doing is right, we probably need to think through the language of it and the processes of it,” Councilman Ricky Burgess added.

Council members also mentioned larger concerns with the overall state of the city’s snow removal efforts.

If the city does purchase and lease the necessary plows, Kail-Smith said she’ll expect that the city’s snow response improves. If it doesn’t, she said, council may need to further investigate the city’s shortcomings.

“Snow removal has been an issue for decades,” she said. “I don’t know it’s ever going to be resolved.”

Councilman Bobby Wilson said he felt fixing the problem “would take many more drivers and many more trucks than what is being proposed here.”

Pawlak said the city is looking at all options to improve, including tweaking the plows’ routes. Currently, the city’s goal is to work on primary streets and emergency routes during snowfall. Once the snow stops falling, the city aims to have secondary streets done within 24 hours — though 36 hours is currently a more realistic expectation, Pawlak said. Tertiary streets are done last.

Some Pittsburgh streets have sat covered in snow for days after recent snowfalls.