Why it takes city street crews 14-16 hours to get Madison streets cleared of snow

MADISON, Wis. — Even after city street crews salted all Madison roads Monday, it still took crews about 14 to 16 hours to get snow removed from the streets.

“We just have a big city, so it takes some time,” said City of Madison Streets Division spokesperson Bryan Johnson.

Johnson said all the salting has helped snowplows get a better grip in areas that were formerly too icy to remove anything from.

“Driving conditions are tough with it actively snowing like this. Even with the work being done on the salt route, even with those extra crews, it’s just going to be covered over again and again and again. It’s hard for us to keep up with all that,” Johnson said.

The Streets Division has an additional 23 plows out, on top of its usual 32 trucks, to help clear the roads.

Johnson said there are nearly 1,700 miles of road for crews to get through. Once crews get the snow removed from the roads, they then have to take the snow piles they create on the sides of the roads and move them to a dumping area to ensure driving around corners isn’t too problematic.

“It’s a slow process, too, because it takes us multiple vehicles and you’re just taking the snow, putting it in the truck, taking it away and then you have to wait for that truck to come back,” Johnson said.

For more information, you can visit the City of Madison Streets Division website here.

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