The District is deploying more contractors and specialized equipment — and receiving help from the National Guard — to clear pathways to bus stops, alleys and other areas that remain hazardous five days after a winter storm walloped the region, vexing commuters and others trying to get around.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced the plans at a Friday briefing, where she also said the city would resume trash pickup on Saturday. Construction Bobcats will begin digging pathways through ice-jammed alleyways for crews to retrieve trash cans. Meanwhile, her administration is asking the National Guard, which has been on hand to aid in the storm response, for help clearing pathways for pedestrians. Bus stops and sidewalks have been covered in icy snow mounds since last weekend’s storm — sometimes leading people to walk or use wheelchairs in the street — and the Department of Transportation is still working on clearing bus shelters.
The expanded operations come as residents have grown impatient with days of challenges traversing the city and have pelted D.C. government with complaints about the conditions. Officials said the ice-crusted snow — which many have called “snowcrete” — made quicker removal difficult and was unlike any storm the District had seen in years.
“Listen, I know everybody is frustrated,” Bowser said. “ … They just want to go back to normal. We want that, too, but we have a lot of snow and ice to move, and we’re moving that snow and ice. I think that we have prioritized the right things — we pivoted and we’ve added resources to accommodate this.”
She said she believed that people expected the District, as the region’s anchor, to get open reasonably swiftly and pointed to schools’ reopening, a well-functioning public transit system and open businesses as bright spots. Still, she said, “that’s not to say that I don’t understand why people are frustrated if they can’t walk to a bus stop. They can’t get to their car that’s in the alley. I get all of those things. We all are prioritizing government operations and getting back to normal just as soon as we can.”
A spokeswoman for the D.C. National Guard Joint Task Force said 50 troops had been assigned to help clear icy sidewalks, prioritizing sidewalks in residential areas leading to bus stops that children need to get to school. Bowser administration officials said parking lots and entrances have been cleared, but many parents and children have struggled to get to the buildings from their neighborhoods.
Bowser’s top deputies in public works and transportation said the District has shifted largely to a snow-hauling operation, deploying the front-loading, heavy-duty construction vehicles to scoop snow into dump trucks that have been hauling the bergs to parking lots at the RFK Stadium site. The site is now full, so they are shifting snow drops to the lots at the defunct United Medical Center.
Anthony Crispino, interim director of the Department of Public Works, said that his department has prioritized plowing streets that either have not had a pass or that snowplows went through early in the storm but remain in “rough shape” now.
“We are taking the input that we’re getting from 311, residents, ANCs, council members, and the like, and we’re incorporating it into our process of applying machinery and personnel to those areas to get residents the relief that they’ve been asking for,” Crispino said. “And I’m pleased to report that while it’s not perfect, we are making good progress. The roads are becoming more navigable and every day the number of streets we need to get to is going down.”
Sharon Kershbaum, director of the D.C. Department of Transportation, said her department was also focused on hauling snow off freeway shoulders or far lanes, hazards she said could be “catastrophic” given drivers are traveling at high speeds. They had completed that work on Interstates 695 and 395 and were working on 295, she said. Crews were also remaining focused on main arterials like Connecticut Avenue and 16th Street NW, and were getting to work on bike lanes; Kershbaum said she hoped to have a map available to cyclists early next week showing which lanes were clear.
She said crews were also prioritizing removing blocks of snow-ice from and around bus shelters, and had cleared 75 to 80 percent of them.
“We normally use snowblowers. We are using ice picks,” she said. “So again, much slower going, and we’re getting 500 bus stops — that is also laborious.”
Bowser said that the District would begin enforcing city laws requiring private business owners and homeowners to shovel their own sidewalks on Monday, starting with “education” and continuing with enforcement if people do not comply; the city had given residents and businesses a grace period given the difficulty of shoveling the snowcrete.
She said D.C. residents can pick up salt to melt ice to help make the shoveling easier at locations across the city.
Meanwhile, trash that has been piling up in residences will soon be picked up, the mayor said. Households that bring trash out to the front of their homes on Mondays should expect trash and recycling pickup on Saturday beginning at 6 a.m., while households should expect it Sunday. Alley-side collections would begin Monday after crews make progress on digging out the snow and ice. Bowser said the goal would be to resume normal operations Monday but that the administration would monitor how the trash pickup went over the weekend.
Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report.
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