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Chicago: 10 36 inches a year
Pittsburgh: 28
Buffalo: 94
Montreal: 82
Syracuse: 124
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I’m from there. I’ve seen more than 10 inches in a day there.
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That’s why it’s an average. But 10 inches is more than a bit off. Average annual snowfall in Chicago is more like 36 inches.
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No doubt you have… and with a little more googling I seem to have cited a bad number. Another search says the annual average for Chicago is closer to 36 inches.
That is still comparatively snowless.
Here are two more numbers of note:
Chicago annual snow removal budget: $20 million (2014).
Montreal (considerably smaller city): $160 million. (The budgeted amount fluctuates based on the previous year’s actual spend; this figure was the amount budgeted for last winter, and was exceeded by $20 million.)
Yes, noticed my bad number. Apologies.
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I can answer this one with all seriousness: after two fatalities in two separate incidents from fires that started in porch couches, Ann Arbor banned porch couches. One fire was started by a passer-by flicking a cigarette onto the couch.
@Espresso: I grew up in Minneapolis, where snow removal is very organized, and this chair-saving business isn’t a thing. Average snowfall in the Twin Cities is 45", which is about what we get in Ann Arbor, MI, but snow removal is a clusterfuck here. I’m honestly surprised that chair-saving hasn’t become a thing here.
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Not surprised to hear that about Minneapolis, but a little surprised about Ann Arbor.
I know that’s a small city and therefore not likely to have a lot of money for dealing with snow, but from what I’ve seen small (and suburban) places have the advantage of being able to push snow to open spaces rather than having to pick it up and truck it away. Do they just let it pile up where it falls?
No plowing occurs at all for less than 4", we only get salt. A significant portion of the street maintenance budget does go for winter maintenance. The main issue is a spineless City Council in a weak-mayor system that refuses to authorize proper snow emergency plans. Fortunately, we only get one or two serious snow storms a year (on the order of 10"), but we get an inch here and two inches there all winter long.
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I used Wikipedia, just to make sure I wasn’t mixing apples to oranges, and used the most recent official count of city only, not the surrounding metropolitan area as well. If I had, the entire metro area for Chicago was 9,928,312 in 2016, and in 2015 Greater Montreal was 4,027,100, less than half.
Also, keep in mind that in Chicago, snow costs are borne by each suburb as well as by the city itself, so the total cost is much higher.
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Size is obviously relevant if we’re comparing costs, but I’m not sure it matters so much if we’re trying to figure out why some places have “parking chairs” and others don’t. I still say total snowfall is the most relevant variable, because with less of it municipalities are more inclined to leave more snow where it falls rather than removing it, but admittedly I base that claim on very limited data.
So let’s do a true apples-to-apple comparison.
The cited $160M is for Montreal proper, i.e. 1.78 million people. That works out to roughly $100 CAD/75 USD per capita. (Liberally rounded, for simplicity.)
Is $20M/2.7 million people (about $7.50/capita) a valid comparison vs. Chicago? Or is it some other amount of money either for 2.7 or 10 million people? On that, I suspect you would know better than me, but I will say that $20M sounds very low given the 36-inch annual average. Does a typical winter include a lot of early and late snowfalls that melt quickly on their own?
If I was in Pittsburgh in the summer, and I saw a comfortable parking chair, I’d be tempted to have a snooze. (Not really. I’d pretend but watch the reactions.)
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You ask a lot of questions that I will only be able to answer anecdotally, but I think at the end of the day, it’s probably behavioral differences in the citizenry to explain the cost (and chair) variance.
One thing I have noticed in the Chicagoland area, and really any place I’ve been, is that there is a density after which people start to act more like they’re fighting to survive. There’s also a privilege factor: people on the north side (on average, more white and more affluent) assume their needs go first, and their driving and parking exemplify this belief (year-round). And finally, getting and keeping a drivers license is much easier in the States, so we do have a lot of bad drivers who would not be allowed to drive in other countries. Not sure where Canada falls on that spectrum, but it can’t be worse than us.
Another aspect of density is that many streets are ‘cleared’ by the action of cars and trucks driving on them 24 hours a day, so that the plows (and dump trucks, when there’s enough build-up to require snow removal) are really for getting the big streets clear right away. Side streets happen maybe two days later. They don’t clear everything within 24 hours, but often enough the traffic itself mitigates the problem soon enough anyway.
Also, property owners are required to do certain clearing of snow themselves: sidewalks, any driveways or walkways connecting the sidewalks to the streets, and if the build-up of snow on the side of the road from the snowplows is too high for cars to see over, that is also supposed to be cleared by each property owner, not the city.
Finally, when you ask:
I would say that we have many moderate snowfalls rather than a few biggies only, so yes, as I said, in many cases the traffic itself turns the snow into slush and then water (which drains into the gutters and then sewer system) and less plowing is needed. Also, we have crazy temperature fluctuations here, so it’s not like snowfall two weeks later is landing on built-up mounds of snow and ice. That does happen occasionally, of course, but usually we get enough warming trends that help with clearing the streets between snowfalls.
Does that help?
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Thanks.
Most of your first three paragraphs could apply to Montreal, geographical specifics aside. Density, entitlement, terrible drivers*… the works.
Generally it’s too cold for traffic on its own to clear a road in any meaningful way. We have plows and salt trucks running during and right after storms, on arteries and side streets alike. Traffic couldn’t move otherwise.
But I’ve never seen anyone get territorial about a parking spot just because they cleared it themselves. You always know the city is going to look after it within a few days, so why bother? And for a snowfall of 6 inches or less, little or no shovelling is needed to extricate your car anyway.
I think most of my curiosity is satisfied by the climate. You get significant melt between storms, and relatively few truly big storms. We do get temperature fluctuations – solidly sub-freezing today, it’s going to be well above on the weekend – but winter warm spells are brief so they don’t reduce snow cover so much as compact it into harder, icier forms.
- An aside on bad drivers: My father (who was a scary-bad driver) got his license by walking into our DMV equivalent and answering in the affirmative when asked if he knew how to drive. That would have been around 1950 or so. Don’t know when actual testing was implemented but it certainly seems that there are quite a few like him still out there.
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Must be nice to be able to trust one’s government to do its job properly!
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Don’t get me started. This city is crumbling and government is structured something like Gotham’s.
But they are pretty good at snow removal, I’ll give 'em that.
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A favorite term in Wisconsin: FISHTAB (Fucking Illinois Shithead Towing A Boat). If I owned a boat (LOL! I’m not made of money), I’d try to get that as a vanity plate for the tow vehicle.
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That makes sense, really, but any major natural feature will suffice - you’ll hear the same thing all around the Great Lakes, for instance. People from the east and west coasts don’t always get that the Great Lakes are inland seas, big enough to make their own weather and having their own hazards such as seiches.
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What do they do if I’m on a houseboat?
I’ve got them then. No property tax, no potential couch seizing. I’ve got it made then!
In all honesty I have seriously considered welding up a custom house from a coal barge and paying mooring fee
