City explains why snowplows push snow into your driveway, and why you shouldn’t push it back into the street

POCATELLO – With winter fast approaching, Pocatello city officials met to talk about what citizens can do to respond and adapt to hazardous, snowy road conditions.

Tom Kirkman, the director of public services, along with the mayor, city councils and others attended the meeting on Nov. 19. Kirkman addressed some common complaints made by residents and business owners, and spoke to things they can do to ensure streets are cleared efficiently and safely.

One of the most common complaints is about snowplows pushing a windrow or pile of snow in front of a driveway. Kirkman explained that this happens when the city receives a range of three to six inches of snowfall. With that much snow, snowplow operators need to push the snow all the way up to the curb. Otherwise, the windrow would pose a threat to drivers on the road.

“Unfortunately, that also leads to snow in front of driveways, and that’s just an unfortunate byproduct of the snow process,” Kirkman said.

Kirkman said that operators are trained to drive slow, and reduce the size of the windrow, but sometimes the amount of snow makes it so that windrows on driveways and sidewalks are inevitable.

Councilman Rick Cheatum pointed out that some cities push snow into the middle of the road.

“What’s the difference in philosophies?” Cheatum asked.

“If you talk to emergency services in those areas … particularly the ambulances … they’ll have to drive a couple of blocks to be able to get to a house that’s right across the windrow,” Kirkman explained.

Residents and property owners are encouraged by the city to push snow onto green space when available. If they don’t have green space, they should push their snow into the street curb so that drivers can still park on the edge of the road.

Mayor Brian Blad spoke to situations that arise when residents push their snow back into the street.

“We have a lot of people that will go in some areas with their four wheelers and a plow,” Blad said. “Sometimes that snow gets pushed out into the road … and we run into some conflict with us pushing the snow to the curb, and then them pushing it from the curb back out into the street, and then we push it back to the curb.”

Blad also spoke to the danger it causes for operators when people push snow back into the street, saying that hitting a large chunk of ice can damage the equipment, as well as injure the driver.

Sometimes residents call the city on the morning of a large snowfall, thinking their street hasn’t been plowed yet. Thanks to GPS tracking on all 14 city snowplows, staff can check and see if the street has been plowed, how many times it’s been plowed and even the exact time.

“A lot of times, the calls we get is that they haven’t seen a plow, but it was actually there about four in the morning. No one’s awake to see that,” Kirkman said.

There are around 700 miles of roads in Pocatello for operators to plow, and many of those are uphill. Operators typically have to plow these roads at a speed of 10 mph.

“It’s a slow process, and we can’t be everywhere at once, and so that’s where we just rely on the citizens to be patient,” Kirkman said.