Public works ready for the winter
Public works ready for the winter
By Lucas Knowles
Editor
The Scarborough Public Works department is looking forward to another winter of maintaining the town’s roads.
As the weather becomes colder, the likelihood of snow becomes more possible. But the recent stretch of warm weather has enabled the town’s public works department to focus on other projects.
‘The weather has been awesome…many a season, on Thanksgiving, we would be scraping the roads and putting salt down,” said Public Works Director Mike Shaw. “We’ve been able to go further into the season and finish up some repairs.”
The town has 15 snow plowing runs that are driven by 16 public works employees, because of Route One needing two drivers.
The price of road salt this year has started to even out after a large jump. Two years ago, the Scarborough Public Works Department bought 2,100 tons of salt, but had to decrease their order to 1,700 tons last year after the price jumped from $31 to $43 a ton. The price of salt is $45 a ton this year and the department has again ordered 2,100 tons for the winter.
Scarborough participates with other local communities in a bidding process for road salt through the Greater Portland Council of Governments. The salt that municipalities in greater Portland receive comes mainly from South America.
While the number of road miles the public works department has to plow has not increased a great deal this year, Shaw said that future development might cause the town to have to rethink its plowing strategy.
“Right now, we are pretty fortunate, but in the future, with development on Haigis Parkway and Gallery Boulevard, I think we are going to need to look at splitting up plow runs in a timely manner.”
The town’s public works department will have 338.6 total miles of road to plow this year. Shaw said a typical plow run takes an employee four to five hours to complete.
When asked what residents can do to help out the public works department this winter, Shaw said they can remove anything they have in the town right-of-way, such as basketball hoops, so there is no damage to those items and the town’s equipment and to, if possible, stay at home and, in the words of Shaw, “let us get out there and do our job, so it doesn’t put anyone in an unsafe position.”
Shaw also asked members of the public to have patience this winter, because public works vehicles “can only plow so fast.”
By Lucas Knowles
Editor
The Scarborough Public Works department is looking forward to another winter of maintaining the town’s roads.
As the weather becomes colder, the likelihood of snow becomes more possible. But the recent stretch of warm weather has enabled the town’s public works department to focus on other projects.
‘The weather has been awesome…many a season, on Thanksgiving, we would be scraping the roads and putting salt down,” said Public Works Director Mike Shaw. “We’ve been able to go further into the season and finish up some repairs.”
The town has 15 snow plowing runs that are driven by 16 public works employees, because of Route One needing two drivers.
The price of road salt this year has started to even out after a large jump. Two years ago, the Scarborough Public Works Department bought 2,100 tons of salt, but had to decrease their order to 1,700 tons last year after the price jumped from $31 to $43 a ton. The price of salt is $45 a ton this year and the department has again ordered 2,100 tons for the winter.
Scarborough participates with other local communities in a bidding process for road salt through the Greater Portland Council of Governments. The salt that municipalities in greater Portland receive comes mainly from South America.
While the number of road miles the public works department has to plow has not increased a great deal this year, Shaw said that future development might cause the town to have to rethink its plowing strategy.
“Right now, we are pretty fortunate, but in the future, with development on Haigis Parkway and Gallery Boulevard, I think we are going to need to look at splitting up plow runs in a timely manner.”
The town’s public works department will have 338.6 total miles of road to plow this year. Shaw said a typical plow run takes an employee four to five hours to complete.
When asked what residents can do to help out the public works department this winter, Shaw said they can remove anything they have in the town right-of-way, such as basketball hoops, so there is no damage to those items and the town’s equipment and to, if possible, stay at home and, in the words of Shaw, “let us get out there and do our job, so it doesn’t put anyone in an unsafe position.”
Shaw also asked members of the public to have patience this winter, because public works vehicles “can only plow so fast.”
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