Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Snow Removal: The Private Sector

Much has been said about the City's and other area governments' efforts to clean the streets of snow and ice. What has been missed are the efforts of private companies and entities to remove the snow from parking lots. Some businesses take action to clear out the snow for customers, while others don't. My experiences have been bad so far.

I can attest that in my building's lot we have just barely one lane around the lot to drive, and the rest is just an ice patch. The Skytop Plaza on Beechmont is a jig-saw puzzle of parking spaces. I don't know who plowed it, but I would guess a rookie. The lot appears to have gotten a once over many days ago, but they seemed to cut a diagonal path across several rows of parking spaces, creating a maze where in some places people are parallel parking along snow piles, instead of in rows.

What I have not seen on the roads since my return to Ohio are the private plows, usually just a pickup with a plow on front, driving around to private businesses clearing out the snow. This has traditionally been a great way for anyone with a pickup truck to make really good money. Back in New York state nearly every other pick-up was equipped to handle a plow for the winter. The number of private plowers appears to follow suit with a low level of plows run by local governments. This is a natural result of the inconsistent snow fall that occurs in this area. What is lacking here is the small business man. This is as basic a business as one could have. Hell, even Homer Simpson did it. Where's Mr. Plow when we need him?
"Mr. Plow, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plow" - Homer J. Simpson

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