Department of Sanitation

Eyes on the Street: The First (And Only?) Snow Report of the Year

Bottom line: The Departments of Sanitation and Transportation did a pretty good job this morning, but painted bike lanes present an ongoing concern.

By Gersh Kuntzman

9:09 AM EST on February 28, 2023

The snow is already starting to melt (damn, global warming), but we thought we would provide you with the first, and possibly only, road report of the winter.

Conditions were very good for a commuter (me) heading from Brooklyn’s Windsor Terrace to Manhattan’s Chinatown, but there were a few caveats (the biggest being: you call that a snowstorm?). Here goes:

First, a word about bus riders

Here’s what happens because the city leaves sidewalk snow clearance to property owners: bus riders are more or less forced to stand in slush:

On the roads

For the most part, painted lanes are more or less useless in even the smallest snowfall because a) drivers just toss the snow from their parked cars into the bike lane or b) the city doesn’t plow close enough to the line of freely stored privately owned automobiles in the public right of way. Here’s what that looks like:

On the plus side, however, anything involving the Department of Sanitation (and its new narrow snowplows) was something of a joy to behold:

Of course, whenever the Parks Department is involved, the goal continues to be to discourage cycling by making roadways impassable. This is only one picture I took, but other overlaps of Department of Transportation or Sanitation responsibility with the Parks Department revealed no interest from the Parks Department to encourage cycling:

In Grand Army Plaza, Parks left conditions slushy.

Fast acting DSNY

The lone bureaucratic snafu on my entire ride in was on Schermerhorn Street, where, clearly, some illegally parked car or truck had blocked the DSNY snowplow on first pass. I was about to pull out the 311 app, when that very plow appeared (as the sequence below shows):

The Brooklyn Bridge

The still relatively new bike path on the Brooklyn Bridge deserves its own section — and its own accolades. When I navigated the bridge at around 8:30 a.m., it was freshly swept: approach ramps on both sides were clear, the bridge was passable, and even Lake Gutman wasn’t too bad (it’s too warm for the old “bridges freeze before roadways” warning).

Gersh Kuntzman

Tabloid legend Gersh Kuntzman has been with New York newspapers since 1989, including stints at the New York Daily News, the Post, the Brooklyn Paper and even a cup of coffee with the Times. He's also the writer and producer of "Murder at the Food Coop," which was a hit at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2016, and “SUV: The Musical” in 2007. He also writes the Cycle of Rage column, which is archived here.

Department of Sanitation | DOT | Street Safety

Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.