Attention, St. Paul property owners — how much, if anything, would you be willing to pay the city for alley plowing?
St. Paul has begun distributing online surveys concerning city-driven alley plowing following snowfalls.
The survey asks whether the public would prefer plowing after every snowfall, after every snowfall of at least two or three inches, or only after official snow emergencies are declared.
Should city crews perform the work, or should plowing be left to private contractors coordinated under a city contract, much like trash collection?
Should alleys be plowed overnight or during the day, and at the same time as or more often than residential streets?
The survey, administered by the University of Minnesota, is at tinyurl.com/STPAlleySurvey.
“In less than 24 hours, we had over 3,500 responses online,” said Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Public Works. “We put it out on all our social channels, and we did a random mailing of printed surveys to property owners. We’re trying to move quickly to get that information to policymakers.”
The survey, funded by $30,000 authorized by the St. Paul City Council last year, closes May 3. It is open to any resident, property owner or business owner.
CITY’S ALLEYS
The city is home to some 330 miles of alleys — paved, gravel, even wood — and “that’s one of the challenges in St. Paul,” Hiebert said. “At this point, it really is just the beginning of a study and getting feedback from residents. What are they doing? What aren’t they doing? This is an often-hotly debated topic, with strong feeling on both sides of the issue.”
St. Paul has long left it up to individual property owners to confer with their neighbors and figure out who will plow the alleys.
The free-market approach tends to work better on blocks with strong social cohesion and designated “block captains” or “alley captains” willing to collect money from their neighbors and hire private contractors.
It’s sometimes less successful on blocks where property owners live out of state, or where neighbors just don’t talk to each other all that much.
During the recession and housing collapse around 2008, some homeowners in areas hard hit by foreclosures said there was no one left on their block to help them foot the bill for private plowing.
MORE COLLECTION IN THE ALLEYS, AND MORE SNOW
The alley plowing conundrum has taken on added weight in recent years as the city has looked to alleys to house more services, from new Eureka recycling trucks for single-sort collection to organized trash collection, which began Oct. 1.
This winter was a particularly difficult one for trash and recycling collection because of heavy snowfall. Some property owners said their pick-ups were skipped for several weeks in a row.
Meanwhile, St. Paul and Ramsey County have contemplated how best to encourage residents to set aside their organics for composting, which could be incorporated into alley collection within a few years, as well.
Alley plowing might solve some problems, but it would bring with it other complications that are less obvious.
Public Works officials have said city plows are generally too large for St. Paul alleys, so plowing would require investment in an entirely new fleet. Many alleys are unlit, an obstacle for overnight plowing.
Meanwhile, about 40 percent of the city does not have alleys, so taking money from the general fund for a citywide service that isn’t citywide is bound to inspire opposition.
The alternative — increasing street-maintenance fees, which are billed separately from property taxes — won’t necessarily go over well with all property owners, either.
‘ALLEYS REQUIRE A WHOLE DIFFERENT SERVICE’
Mark Schroeder has spent his winters plowing St. Paul alleys for 35 years.
Working with a handful of subcontractors, Schroeder services private contracts for 100 “alley captains” in St. Paul each season, charging about $20 to $25 per household annually. He questions whether municipal alley plowing would be any cheaper.
“Alleys require a whole different service level than the streets do,” Schroeder said. “Streets can get by leaving a three-inch or four-inch snowfall lay. There’s no way we can get by with leaving that in the alleys.”
For one thing, unlike street parking, drivers turning into garages are making a near-90 degree turn.
“They’re entering perpendicular to the direction of travel,” Schroeder said. “It becomes a lot of turning and jockeying, in particular with today’s smaller cars and lower ground clearance.”
His crews go out after every two-inch snowfall, he said.
“This year was unusual because we had a lot of five-inch and six-inch snowfalls, and it almost dictates that they be serviced twice,” Schroeder said.