KCRag Forum

warwickland wrote: Come on now Grid, look, theres not even any houses or trees on the Missouri side of the state line, must be all the blight and fires!

The photo is funny though, as misleading as it is (it could be even a dead end or something).  I laughed at it.  Then I thought...shit,, this snow plowing stuff is serious business in KC and most people won't just look and laugh, they will look and say, "that's why I don't live in KCMO" or "that's why I want to move out of KCMO".  I have heard it 100 times.

What would KCMO do if they could plow as well as JoCo?  I mean, that would change the face of the city right?

I thought the photo was funny, and didn't mean anything in a political sense.  I do think pulling out of that road onto the busy streets of State Line or Ward Pkwy is dangerous though.  Fortunately, it is a slow week for rush hour and the gaps in traffic are larger than usual.

GRID wrote: What would KCMO do if they could plow as well as JoCo?  I mean, that would change the face of the city right?

The problem of course is that the city would probably have to raise taxes in order to provide as much plowing as Overland Park, and then people would say they don't live in the city because the taxes went up.

It's 67th Street.  And it wasn't meant to hurt anybody's feelers...

LaurenKU wrote: It's 67th Street.  And it wasn't meant to hurt anybody's feelers...

I don't think anyone's feelings are hurt.  It's just become cliche to make this very narrow comparison between all of Kansas City and these 5-6 tiny towns along State Line Road that clear their entire town by just hiring a couple of guys with plows on their pickups.

Regardless of if Kansas municipalities (excluding KCK) plow their streets better than KCMO, I think overall, metro residents need to take a deep breath when it comes to getting snow off the streets.

We had a major storm, over the holidays, and cities are dealing with budget issues. All three of those variables point to slow snow removal.

This issue could be solved if everyone paid attention to the weather, and when a big snow storm is about to strike, hit up the liquor stores for a five-day supply of their preferred beverage and hunker down.

And IF they need to go out, they shouldn't have the expectation of going 10 MPH over the speed limit (which is set for normal conditions, BTW) 10 hours after a freakin' blizzard.

Let Darwinism clear the streets!

OPIchabod wrote: Regardless of if Kansas municipalities (excluding KCK) plow their streets better than KCMO, I think overall, metro residents need to take a deep breath when it comes to getting snow off the streets.

We had a major storm, over the holidays, and cities are dealing with budget issues. All three of those variables point to slow snow removal.

This issue could be solved if everyone paid attention to the weather, and when a big snow storm is about to strike, hit up the liquor stores for a five-day supply of their preferred beverage and hunker down.

And IF they need to go out, they shouldn't have the expectation of going 10 MPH over the speed limit (which is set for normal conditions, BTW) 10 hours after a freakin' blizzard.

Let Darwinism clear the streets!

finally, some sanity!

Maybe it's not a big deal to some, but the fact that my street didn't get plowed for over a day (and when it did, all it really accomplished was leaving me nowhere to park) really sucked. I had places to go on the 25th and it took me over an hour of shoveling only to get stuck and have to get pushed out by the neighbors. I ended up being nearly two hours late. Then when I got back, I had to shovel for another forty minutes just to have somewhere to park. Then I had to shovel the street again on Saturday due to additional snowfall, then again on Sunday due to plows piling up a mess near the curb.

Fortunately, I'm an able-bodied, relatively young guy. If I were elderly or disabled, and had to get out and get medicine or food or something, I would have been screwed. But fuck those people, I guess? They should move to JoCo if they can't handle the harsh reality of completely incompetent snow removal? Ok.

GRID wrote: It is photos like this that fuel the fire of how much "better" Kansas is than Missouri, yet having lived in the Brookside/Waldo area many years, I can remember many times when the freeways and arterials were in much better shape on the MO side vs the KS side.

Even the suburbs on the MO side (that I traveled on today) had their side streets in better overall shape than those of KCMO.  Regarding the main streets in KCMO some, like Broadway by St. Luke's, were down a lane since the cleaning wasn't curb-to-curb.  But even short right-turn lanes and curved streets in the suburbs had this problem.  

Yes, KCMO has some additional difficulties in cleaning streets but when it's leaders promises it's citizens a certain level of service then it does need to be held accountable when that level of service is not provided.

mean wrote: I had places to go on the 25th and it took me over an hour of shoveling only to get stuck and have to get pushed out by the neighbors.

NO side streets were clear on the 25th.  I was in suburbs in both states and they looked exactly like KCMO at that point.

I live in lees summit and my street has only been plowed twice since this all started. Long, slow moving, sustained snow is about the worst for side street as the plow teams have to keep re-plowing the main roads.

Don't forget that KCMO residents can report problem streets to the Action Center and they will get in the queue for plowing.  When they switched to neighborhood streets on Monday, they started with the places that had been reported to the Action Center, so it does help to take the initiative to get your street in the queue.

3-1-1 or 816-531-1313 or http://www.kcmo.org/action

I live in JoCo, and my side street was still undriveable on Saturday. We didn't leave our house until Sunday, and even then the side streets were still pretty bad.

When it constantly snows, there's not much the plows can do. I know people have stuff to do, but those are the kind of days you kind of have to prioritize and ask yourself just how important it is to get out.

I have found the missouri roads to all be pretty decent - except my street which has never been plowed and is really only passable if you are driving a horse-drawn sleigh. 

I find it better for them to just leave the snow then it melting and making an ice rink out of a street.  My only complaint is the bus stops and property owners not taking care of their sidewalks.

Here's the problem:  http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking ... 56719.html 

I want to see this idiot out shoveling my street by hand in her orange jumpsuit. 

Man, going to KC this weekend, was like going to Chicago weather wise with all of your lingering snow (which, I take the train to in the winter). I idled back into StL with a busted loud exhaust system from totally launching off a snowbank in KCK.

Got some insight into the problems that KCMO had with the latest round of snow removal.  This is from someone who worked over 50 hrs overtime from when the snow started until Sunday (end of pay period) and from another person who was involved with it for many years from the late 70's on.

It use to be that the city utilized private contractors (people with blades on pickups) to plow residential streets while city crews did the main ones.  Of course this could be expensive but at the same time the city could throw many crews at the problem during a heavy snow and plow all city streets at the same time.  With the idea it could save money the city ditched the private contractors and replace them with more city crews.  So instead of driving around the city in light duty pickups or small SUV's many employees are now driving one ton trucks.  To help implement this residential streets are not addressed until after the main streets are taken care of.

All is well and good with that program in theory but it breaks down in the current situation.  Instead of a heavy snowfall in a relatively short period of time the snow just kept on coming so the main streets were never cleared.  In addition with the budget cutbacks the number of crews have been reduced.  And there is a lesser amount in the budget for equipment maintenance and during this storm there was a higher than normal amount of equipment failures.

There were other problems but the above is a pretty good summary.

shinatoo wrote: I live in lees summit and my street has only been plowed twice since this all started. Long, slow moving, sustained snow is about the worst for side street as the plow teams have to keep re-plowing the main roads.

Hah, same.  I'm not sure how often ours has been plowed, because we were out of state the 23-30, but it definitely hasn't been touched since we got back.

Jess wrote: Hah, same.  I'm not sure how often ours has been plowed, because we were out of state the 23-30, but it definitely hasn't been touched since we got back.

Mine got plowed this morning before 5 am and I have to be somewhere on the bottom of the list.