Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The City of Buffalo is focusing on solidifying a better snow plan for the upcoming snow season.
Buffalo's Department of Public Works presented to the Buffalo Common Council Tuesday afternoon a snow plan for the 2022-23 season which includes a GPS tracking system, which will be retrofitted to all of the 120 DPW vehicles, including the sanitation vehicles.
This will allow not only supervisors to monitor the progress of the plows, but residents as well, who can view in real time where the snow plows are as well as how recently streets have been plowed on their mobile devices or on a computer at www.buffalony.gov/snowfleet.
The website also has a search bar feature where you can manually type in a street or address and NITTEC cameras showing live feeds of certain streets throughout the city. Residents can also call 311 if they don't have internet access.
Buffalo's Common Council have been inquiring the last two months and are very pleased to be seeing some real plans, but they are still voicing some concerns, "In a snowstorm mode, we do have seniors who don't have driveways who do have cars parked on the streets, who cannot uncover their cars in enough time before the plow comes down the street. And sometimes this even results in the street being plowed because the plow can't get down the street. Are we considering seniors who cannot move their cars for those plows as well?" asks Councilman Ulysees Wingo.
"The biggest problem that we had in my district, this Martin Luther King storm and beyond, was cars that were parked illegally and there needs to be a better coordination of getting those cars when they are illegally parked off the streets. So I want to make sure that this is something that we're able to do with this GPS," said Councilman Joseph Golombek.
There were also concerns with adequate staffing of plow operators, Interim Commissioner of the DPW, Francisco Guzman, assured the council that they have enough drivers.
In addition, Councilman David Rivera raise concerns about the funding of the snow plan. According to Guzman, only $260,000 has been earmarked and according to Guzman, last year the department spent about $800,000 for the plan. Guzman says that the $260,000 earmarked is for contracts to start and they have the ability to secure more funding should it be needed in the plans.
Councilman Rasheed Wyatt is cautiously optimistic about the effectiveness of this plan, he wants to see some more effective dialogue between the new Commissioner of the department and the council as it was also announced that Nathan Martion will be heading the DPW and will be in charge of continuing to implement and operate the city's snow plan recently devised.
"I really want to see how it's executed, I was glad to hear that they're going to be doing some testing to make sure everything works because when we get into that snow situation, we can't be doing testing. People expect plows to come down their streets so they also they can go to work, take or pick their kids up from school, whatever the situation is," Councilman Wyatt tells WBEN.
The councilman says he's looking forward to the Community Development Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 9th where the DPW will continue addressing the specific concerns and questions of the council and adjust their plans as necessary.
Councilman Wyatt and his colleagues are also going to inquire about dead end and island streets being plowed because those were some of the many issues residents highlighted to the council last year.
"At the end of the day, this is about delivering exceptional services to hard-working taxpayers in our city. We saw what happened last year. We don't want to be in that same dilemma, people don't want to hear excuses," Councilman Wyatt says.
