January 31, 2011

Blizzard 2011: Updated Snow Squad Grade B

The Institute's Snow Squad canvassed the city to see how well Chicago responded to the Blizzard of 2011 and gave the city a B.

by Ashley Muchow

Blizzard 2011

The Institute’s Snow Squad canvassed the city to see how well Chicago responded to the Blizzard of 2011 — a snowstorm that left over 20 inches of snow, drifts piling up to 10 feet in some parts of the city, and a historic shutdown of the city’s iconic Lake Shore Drive. As the city responded to the epic snowstorm, we photographed a sample of arterial and side streets and evaluated how well the city performed.

Chicago deployed the Department of Streets and Sanitation?s entire fleet of 274 snow trucks and an additional 120 garbage trucks outfitted with quick hitch plows. The Department worked around the clock to keep arterial roads clear throughout Tuesday night and Wednesday. The Department’s first priority were arterial streets and main thoroughfares; once the storm subsided, focus shifted to side and neighborhood streets.

The Blizzard of 2011 was a storm of epic proportions. Hundreds of cars were scattered along Lake Shore Drive from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, rescue operations by the Chicago Fire and Police Departments continued into the wee hours on Wednesday, and many neighboring counties took extreme cautions, declaring civil emergencies and closing all roads within county limits.

The Snow Squad’s Assessment

The Institute’s Snow Squad gives the city of Chicago a B on main roads and a C on its response to side roads during the 3rd largest snowstorm in the city’s history. Our main grade was updated late Wednesday evening to factor in the conditions on Lake Shore Drive. By 6:00PM Wednesday the city still didn’t see full resolution of the Lake Shore Drive situation. As this is the primary artery running through the city, the overall city grade should include this measure.

Overall Main Road Grade: B
Overall Side Road Grade: C

From the angles we captured, the city responded remarkably well to heavily-traveled main streets — in 100 percent of our photos main streets were accessible. Lake Shore Drive was not captured by members of our Snow Squad, but the complications that occurred Tuesday night and Wednesday morning drove our main road grade down to a B. If our grading was limited to Lake Shore Drive the city would have received an F — the Drive is the central artery running through the city of Chicago and its closure leaving hundreds of stranded motorists caused major complications during and after the blizzard. But when you look at the total picture, Chicago did pretty well–a B overall, an F for Lake Shore Drive, and a C on side streets.

Once the storm subsided, side streets were tended to at a pace that surpassed the average of all the studies we completed this year. Clean up operations initially focused on artery and main streets and once the snow tapered off, fleets were sent to secondary and city side roads. Residents live on the side streets of Chicago — it is important these streets become accessible for residents. The snow removal process on these roads will be long and difficult; it will be a plowing and pushing job for the next couple days and it is one that we plan to track.

As record-breaking snowfall means uncertainty in the way of magnitude, we adjusted our grading to evaluate roads conditions not on the measure of whether salt was applied and the road clear, but rather, whether the road was accessible. Bare pavement in these conditions was not feasible, but snow removal operations could see to it that road were clear enough to allow traffic to pass on arterial roads and on side roads after the storm subsided. Our grades evaluate how well city responders kept streets passable.

We captured the conditions of four main roads and four side streets and factored the city’s performance on each into the final grade. The Snow Squad’s grade is based on the following:

In what percentage of photos were main roads passable? 100%
In what percentage of photos were side roads passable after the storm subsided? 71%

Share how well the city performed from your angle — post photos and share your stories with the Institute on Facebook!

Western and Harrison (main road)

2/1 5:35PM Salt on. Road accessible.