Speaker 1: Do want to be in a mad.
Speaker 2: Harry Harry Harry is I don't mean style also I
Speaker 2: mean Harry driving this morning. The Roadways seven hundred w W.
Speaker 2: Scott's Loan show first significant snowfall of the season two
Speaker 2: to four plus depending where you are early on this morning.
Speaker 2: The earl early hours are extremely difficult. I heard poor
Speaker 2: Chuck Ingram and traffic getting in about three and a
Speaker 2: half hours late this morning. Left at three o'clock, didn't
Speaker 2: get it until just after six sometime. And same for
Speaker 2: Brian Combs and a bunch of other folks. Right, I
Speaker 2: got here about six thirty, so I left the left
Speaker 2: my place at until after six o'clock, and it was,
Speaker 2: you know, thirty five in this ice eventy one by
Speaker 2: the way, maybe thirty five miles an hour some spots
Speaker 2: and after that, but those coming in now, I you're
Speaker 2: driving right now.
Speaker 3: Roads O doubts certainly did a great job.
Speaker 2: The other question would be the counties, but also the
Speaker 2: city of Cincinnati last January. We know snow removal of
Speaker 2: the city was a complete train wreck, was a disaster.
Speaker 2: We had equipment breakdown, shortages, roads left untreated, communication problems
Speaker 2: this time, lots of changes with snowplows equipped with state
Speaker 2: of the art technology to track routes and a new
Speaker 2: real time snow applow tracker website that apparently is not
Speaker 2: working as it should on that And he's out on
Speaker 2: the street right now. That is a council member, Seth
Speaker 2: Walsh on the show campaigned on the issue of snowplows
Speaker 2: and snow removal, so he is our official snow guy
Speaker 2: for the City of Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: Seth, welcome back. Where are you right now?
Speaker 4: We've just exited the UC area checking out around you
Speaker 4: see health that was a hard spot last year when
Speaker 4: the big snowstorm came in. We could literally couldn't gage
Speaker 4: cancer patients to U see help. But it's looking great
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 3: You're actually out there.
Speaker 2: Someone's driving you around, Buddy's driving you around, just because
Speaker 2: you want a lay of the land. You want to
Speaker 2: see what's working and what's not. Give me on a
Speaker 2: scale of one to ten, how impressed are you with
Speaker 2: the snow removal this morning with the City of Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna go seven or eight.
Speaker 4: This is prior already the priority streets have really they're
Speaker 4: looking really good from what I'm seeing right now, and
Speaker 4: I think that's an incredible testament to the hard work
Speaker 4: of GPS overnight, the strategy they put in place of
Speaker 4: last year and make sure we didn't have to mess
Speaker 4: up from last from the last year. And you know, frankly,
Speaker 4: Priority one streets are looking good. I think that we're
Speaker 4: going to see over the rest of the day, we're
Speaker 4: going to get the rest of the side streets taken
Speaker 4: care of, and you know, we'll move that up to
Speaker 4: a ten when we get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and on that too.
Speaker 2: Last year there were literally city managers said, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: there's going to be maybe it was some bridges and
Speaker 2: roads said that listen, there's some streets that aren't going
Speaker 2: to get plowed. It's just a matter of fact. Is
Speaker 2: that has that changed since this time last year?
Speaker 1: That's my understanding.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, we found last year after the snow
Speaker 4: emergency that there were six hundred streets we didn't even
Speaker 4: know that we hadn't touched.
Speaker 1: And so we have literally redrawn the maps.
Speaker 4: We've put in place a new system that makes so
Speaker 4: much sense. You know, it's a GPS based system where
Speaker 4: you can actually real time track streets are being plowed,
Speaker 4: what streets have not been touched.
Speaker 1: And then we're making sure we're hitting all of them.
Speaker 4: And even though the Cloud Tracker is kind of hit
Speaker 4: or miss right now, that's mostly because they have too
Speaker 4: money people coming to watch it. It's working. It seems
Speaker 4: to be working really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on that, we're getting some calls. We had difficulty
Speaker 2: trying to log on and see in real time what
Speaker 2: roads have been plowed, and we had calls many a
Speaker 2: lot of people expressing frustration with that, and it's a
Speaker 2: bandwidth issue. I understand that, but is heavily this was
Speaker 2: that with all the problems last years, heavily this this
Speaker 2: solution was advertised. Shouldn't shouldn't that have been an issue
Speaker 2: that was foreseen that a lot of people are getting
Speaker 2: get on to see what the roads look like.
Speaker 4: I would say that the issue that we did not
Speaker 4: foresee was how successful our marketing campaign would be at
Speaker 4: getting people to.
Speaker 1: Trust this and use it.
Speaker 4: Because we definitely expected a lot of usage, we did
Speaker 4: not expect nearly as much as we're getting today. And
Speaker 4: I think that's I think that's fantastic, and we're going
Speaker 4: to get it fixed for the next time.
Speaker 1: That's why you stress test these experiences.
Speaker 4: And we're found out that it's you know, it is
Speaker 4: working hit or miss. I've had the same problems that
Speaker 4: you're talking about there, but the miss is the problem,
Speaker 4: and so we're going to we're going to increase that bandwidth.
Speaker 4: We're going to make it better for the next time.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately that is the problem. But frankly, I'd rather take
Speaker 4: a problem. We have too many people watching a successful
Speaker 4: system than last year, where it was literally making up
Speaker 4: data and making us think that it hit streets that
Speaker 4: it had we hadn't come close to touching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess you'll push it back if if
Speaker 2: you stress test something, it shows you it's working. Apparently
Speaker 2: the stress test wasn't stressful enough.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, yesterday I was watching it. It was
Speaker 4: really it was actually really fun to watch. As we
Speaker 4: were showing what streets were getting pre treated. We were
Speaker 4: getting a lot of comments from people that they've never
Speaker 4: seen so many so many poles out there pre treating roads.
Speaker 4: But then today the snow hits a lot more people
Speaker 4: watched it. So what we expected to stress us to
Speaker 4: have in terms of how many people would watch it,
Speaker 4: we've we've passed. Then today finds out that a lot
Speaker 4: more people are watching it again. That's a good problem
Speaker 4: to have. Yes, we got to do.
Speaker 1: Better at it. We're going to do better at it.
Speaker 4: But the problem is too many people ultimately are watching it,
Speaker 4: and that we didn't anticipate.
Speaker 1: And I think we will fix that. And that's an easy.
Speaker 4: Problem to fix, as opposed to again last year, where
Speaker 4: we literally just didn't pole.
Speaker 1: Six hundred streets. That's a big problem. This is a
Speaker 1: little Okay, let's fix that internal it problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not going to be labor the snow tracker
Speaker 2: app or the website anyway being down from time to
Speaker 2: time and getting you know, slow to load and things
Speaker 2: because so many people are watching it. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's a pot It's a step in the right direction
Speaker 2: of the sense that you know, last year it was
Speaker 2: six hundred roads if you're simply were left untreated and
Speaker 2: not enough equipment, not enough manpower, not enough everything, and
Speaker 2: the communication was terrible, the communication as much. You know,
Speaker 2: if we get it right for the next no Store,
Speaker 2: I'm fine. If we don't, there's probably more problems there
Speaker 2: than not. But the fact of the matter is the
Speaker 2: roads are getting treated and plowed. That's the big thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And to your point about communication. I mean here,
Speaker 4: in forty five minutes, the director of DPS is going
Speaker 4: to be coming to city Council to talk about, you know,
Speaker 4: all the work we've done the last year anyway, So
Speaker 4: we're actually we're getting what. We're not waiting a month
Speaker 4: to have a conversation about what the reaction is. We're
Speaker 4: actually going to get real time. Here's what happened, here's
Speaker 4: how it's put out, Here's where we need to do better.
Speaker 4: This is the first time that I think we've had
Speaker 4: a pretty successful reaction to the.
Speaker 1: Snow emergency in many, many years.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, there's a little some little things that
Speaker 4: are fonts in the cracks, but on the whole, it's
Speaker 4: looking good.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that we're open to the
Speaker 1: feedback and criticism is really critical as well, because for.
Speaker 4: Too long, you know, the answer was just well, when
Speaker 4: you're not every sheet can get plotted, and that's just
Speaker 4: not an acceptable answer.
Speaker 1: And this year we're not accepting that as an answer.
Speaker 1: And I'm happy about that as well.
Speaker 3: You should be.
Speaker 2: I mean that this was the feather in your cap
Speaker 2: to get this done. There is going to be some
Speaker 2: rough patches as you roll this thing out. I think
Speaker 2: most people understand it and appreciate it, but it's moving
Speaker 2: in the right direction. And the last year, council Member
Speaker 2: Seth Walsh, what was happening behind the scenes relative to
Speaker 2: personnel changes, disciplinary actions, the failures addressed last year? What
Speaker 2: what you to the last three hundred plus days.
Speaker 4: Well, since the snow emergency, I mean you saw some
Speaker 4: of the reporting that came out right afterwards, you know,
Speaker 4: immediately we were trying to figure out what was happening,
Speaker 4: Why did we have such a terrible reaction to the
Speaker 4: snow emergency?
Speaker 1: And lifted up the hood and we I mean we
Speaker 1: found a multitude of problems, and so they moved Assistant city.
Speaker 4: Manager Kathy Bailey over DPS and she really dug in
Speaker 4: on figuring out what happened, what support needed to be
Speaker 4: better put in place, what systems need to be fixed.
Speaker 4: They found over forty four different areas and let me
Speaker 4: stress areas not like issues.
Speaker 1: So each area had its own issues that needed.
Speaker 4: To get fixed within it that they spent the last
Speaker 4: three hundred plus days fixing.
Speaker 1: The DPS director at the time retired.
Speaker 4: We brought in Mark Riley, who has been fantastic, I
Speaker 4: mean he was texting me this morning, giving me real
Speaker 4: time updates of what was going on on the streets,
Speaker 4: really making sure that we had this figured out. You know,
Speaker 4: they found out within the first couple of days of
Speaker 4: the emerge to see that we didn't touch six hundred streets,
Speaker 4: and they've spent the last year really going through that
Speaker 4: and redesigning all these snow routes. They've brought in all
Speaker 4: this new technology, but also they haven't.
Speaker 1: We haven't solved all four to four.
Speaker 4: Of these issues yet because those are some massive issues
Speaker 4: that we're solving. So we've solved the immediate problems and
Speaker 4: then like today, we find you know, we got sixty
Speaker 4: percent of the way there on the snowplow tracker. We
Speaker 4: didn't expect as many people to be watching it as possible,
Speaker 4: so we got to do better and we're going to
Speaker 4: fix that for the next time. And there's other issues
Speaker 4: we're going to continue to work on. But the real
Speaker 4: big stuff is, you know, we have a plan to
Speaker 4: actually pile the streets. And again, you're from Buffalo, off
Speaker 4: from Michigan. Most of this comes down and you pre
Speaker 4: treat it and then you plow it. And we literally
Speaker 4: we're sending our crews out to Denver saying, how do
Speaker 4: you take care of your streets?
Speaker 1: You guys want to handle this, and then we're taking
Speaker 1: their businesses. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, and
Speaker 1: I think you see that today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you look at the areas that get a
Speaker 2: lot of snow and go, Okay, we don't need to
Speaker 2: replicate that, but we need to learn best practices to
Speaker 2: handle things here in Cincinnati. Seth makes a lot of
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense. Did you add more
Speaker 2: plod drivers this year?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So we actually, you know, it sounds crazy, but
Speaker 4: we actually created a system where everybody is now that
Speaker 4: would drive a plow is actually trained to drive a
Speaker 4: plow instead of last time where we were literally putting
Speaker 4: people behind the wheel for the first time ever. I've
Speaker 4: actually just seen two snowplows in the last like thirty seconds,
Speaker 4: which is a great sign here.
Speaker 1: So you know, last time part of the problem.
Speaker 4: If you if you can imagine, we were literally putting
Speaker 4: people behind the wheel for the first time, giving them
Speaker 4: a binder with map quest like directions to say, hey,
Speaker 4: here's where you got to drive. They were driving in
Speaker 4: the middle of a blizzard at night, with like flashlights
Speaker 4: in their mouths to figure out where they had to go.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's just chaotic and that's a mess, and
Speaker 4: that's the reason we saw the disaster we saw. Now
Speaker 4: these everybody who's driving a snowplow today that you see
Speaker 4: out there has actually gone through simulations. They've been trained
Speaker 4: on how to drive. We've brought people in who had
Speaker 4: the appropriate trainings. We've been sentivized people to.
Speaker 1: Get trained on how to do it. And they're out
Speaker 1: there and they're doing a great job.
Speaker 4: And I think that day is going to continue to
Speaker 4: show over the months and years ahead, have some really
Speaker 4: positive returns for the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's investing in that critical infrastructure. You know,
Speaker 2: you can talk about all those bells and whistles and
Speaker 2: nice stuff, but if the roads aren't plowed and the
Speaker 2: roads aren't full of potholes, that's another issue that was
Speaker 2: addressed to in the last year, then you're gonna have
Speaker 2: very unhappy residents. So it's good to hear that this
Speaker 2: has now become a big priority with you and the
Speaker 2: rest of council.
Speaker 3: Seth.
Speaker 2: I think a tip of the hat. If the roads
Speaker 2: are is good and you're you're driving around right now, well,
Speaker 2: somebody's driving you around, so I'm gonna make it like
Speaker 2: you're on the phone. By the way, I would if
Speaker 2: I were that person, I'd be demanding you buy them
Speaker 2: breakfast if you haven't already.
Speaker 3: And also the.
Speaker 1: Other thing too is breakfast.
Speaker 2: It is the most important meal of the day. Also,
Speaker 2: that the twelve hour ships are new, is that correct?
Speaker 2: Say that again, the twelve hour ships? Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: was it twenty four hour coverage? And you know there
Speaker 2: was a huge burnout issue because I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: news would be talking to people who are driving a
Speaker 2: truck for twenty four straight hours being snowblind. And now
Speaker 2: you've kind of even changed the way that the ships
Speaker 2: are scheduled, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, so we got we put them on twelve
Speaker 4: hour shifts. There's a select crew that's on twelve hour
Speaker 4: shifts when the weather starts to change. But in emergencies
Speaker 4: like this, we put people on the twelve hour shifts.
Speaker 4: And you know, emergency I think is a very loose
Speaker 4: word for what we're dealing with today.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're on twelve hour shifts.
Speaker 4: They're hard work, and they were out all night again
Speaker 4: yesterday they were pre treating watching that on the snowploud
Speaker 4: tracker cool, and I think that's really important that you
Speaker 4: can see your roads got appreciated and then today you
Speaker 4: can see hopefully you know, as the day progressage of
Speaker 4: they'll see your roads goot plowed and them they're they're
Speaker 4: hard workers.
Speaker 1: And none of this problem has ever been the drivers.
Speaker 1: The problem has been the system we set up has
Speaker 1: failed them.
Speaker 4: And I think for the first time they're they're set
Speaker 4: up for success and we're seeing that.
Speaker 2: We know Seth Walsh that the tracker only activates during
Speaker 2: full winter response operations. What you call that like for
Speaker 2: example the snow just remindfully, what's the threshold for that?
Speaker 3: Who makes the call?
Speaker 2: And we didn't have one during the dusting is I
Speaker 2: think we had a conversation about that as well. We'll
Speaker 2: change eventually to where any snow event where the roads
Speaker 2: are treated will least snow where they're doing their job.
Speaker 4: Oh well, I don't want to talk too far out
Speaker 4: of school on this one, but I think that that
Speaker 4: was a little bit of some bureaucratic speak when we
Speaker 4: gave that answer.
Speaker 1: I think this is again part of how we were
Speaker 1: learning and growing.
Speaker 4: So last time when we had the dusting the reason
Speaker 4: that the snowplow tractor wasn't working is there weren't snowplows
Speaker 4: out there. And shortly before you and I had our
Speaker 4: last call about this, one of the things I challenged
Speaker 4: them on was, hey, we're pre treating streets like show people.
Speaker 4: We're pre treating streets so you don't have to have
Speaker 4: a snowplow out there. And you see this time again,
Speaker 4: you can track the pre treating in your streets on there.
Speaker 4: They reacted quickly, they made the adaptions.
Speaker 1: They move forward.
Speaker 4: So I think the appropriate answer how you track snowplows
Speaker 4: is if there's a snowplow snowpower out there, you should
Speaker 4: be able to track it. And if that is pre
Speaker 4: treating your street, if that is power your street, we
Speaker 4: want to.
Speaker 1: Be able to track the snowpower.
Speaker 4: If you can't track it outside of the situation like
Speaker 4: today where there's too many people watching it, you can't
Speaker 4: track it, it's because there's no snowplow out there. And
Speaker 4: then you can ask us why is it not snowplowt there.
Speaker 4: We'll probably say it's because it's a sunny day and
Speaker 4: there's not no reason for one.
Speaker 1: That's the hope at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well right exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, if there's a threat, as we know, you
Speaker 2: know Cincinnati's, we freak out the minute there's even the
Speaker 2: forecast of snow. We start driving with our hazards on.
Speaker 2: We pump our brakes. Some people drive sixty miles over
Speaker 2: the speed limits and people thirty miles under the speed limit.
Speaker 2: It's chaos out there before the first flake even flies.
Speaker 2: I think having that system in place, when that's part
Speaker 2: of it's like, hey, l roads are treated. There's a
Speaker 2: little bit of comfort there knowing that you guys are on.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good ad for the competence of
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 4: I agree, and I think it's going to be critical
Speaker 4: as schools have to make decisions about whether they're gonn
Speaker 4: to be open or closed.
Speaker 1: You know, they have to build trust the city.
Speaker 4: Is going to be able to do their job and
Speaker 4: get the streets plowed, and the part of city.
Speaker 1: Government is rebuilding that trust.
Speaker 4: What happened last year was big in the sense of
Speaker 4: is ten inches, but it's been an issue that's been
Speaker 4: building a building building for years and so hopefully this
Speaker 4: allows not only have streets clear, but to be able
Speaker 4: to get schools open appropriately. Build trust that we were
Speaker 4: ready for, and it just kind of ripples out from
Speaker 4: there so that you know, jobs.
Speaker 1: Aren't interrupted and people can continue their lives even though
Speaker 1: snow's coming down.
Speaker 4: They get enjoy the beauty of watching the snow as
Speaker 4: opposed to worry about driving in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other element of this too, you kind of touched
Speaker 2: down a little bit, is the prioritization of streets. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the arteries, the ones that get you to the hospitals
Speaker 2: for example, campuses, things like that, those have to be
Speaker 2: cleared for emergency runs and the like. Side streets get deprioritized.
Speaker 2: But what is a reasonable wait for people listening this
Speaker 2: morning seth wallsh relative to their street being cloud.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest way I'd say it is, you know,
Speaker 4: right off the bat, we've got to clear the arteries,
Speaker 4: and to your point, you know, cancer not cancer hospitals
Speaker 4: are really important because people need to be able to
Speaker 4: get to and fro there from there.
Speaker 1: From there, we.
Speaker 4: Kind of spread out to you know, the streets that
Speaker 4: most people are traveling on. You probably know what they
Speaker 4: are because you're probably driving on them. And then once
Speaker 4: the snow really kind of stops, it allows us to
Speaker 4: start tackling and triage in the side streets, but immediately
Speaker 4: when the snow's coming down, we're trying to get those
Speaker 4: the main arteries, the main emergency roads, the main roads
Speaker 4: people are going to be driving on as clear as possible.
Speaker 1: We just keep hitting them and then I'm gonna show's over.
Speaker 4: We're gonna go out there, We're gonna hit the side
Speaker 4: streets and get those clear because that's a lot easier
Speaker 4: to just hit it once or twice and then it's
Speaker 4: completely solved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I love the you know, the when the
Speaker 2: apps up and fully working should be for the next
Speaker 2: cycle here, then you're gonna be there's gonna be accountability.
Speaker 2: You can see that where the roads are, when they've
Speaker 2: been treated, when they've been plowed, where they've been salted
Speaker 2: and plowed. There's a whole bunch of metrics on the page.
Speaker 2: And that's a step in the right direction for sure.
Speaker 2: I know, a little glitchy this morning with that website
Speaker 2: not working at times, a little slow to load, but
Speaker 2: you're confident you're going to get this taken care of
Speaker 2: for the next round.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm very confident and I'm I'm optimistic that going
Speaker 4: forward it will not be a thing in Cincinnati where
Speaker 4: you say my street never gets plowed. If your street
Speaker 4: doesn't get plowed, it should be for other reasons like
Speaker 4: it's a private street, not because it's subsidious and Snati
Speaker 4: street and we just don't plow it. And I think
Speaker 4: that'd be a huge change that hopefully you don't even
Speaker 4: realize happened.
Speaker 2: He says, well, well, she's in the thick of it
Speaker 2: right now, checking out the roads, make sure the plow
Speaker 2: crews are doing what they're doing, making sure of things
Speaker 2: working right. It sounds certainly well, not perfect, light years
Speaker 2: away from where we were well almost a year ago
Speaker 2: in January when that ten inch storm and literally six
Speaker 2: hundred streets not plowed. That is a unmitigated disaster. Far
Speaker 2: sight better today for sure, Buddy. Appreciate you checking in
Speaker 2: this morning, Seth as always. Thanks again, Thanks scott Council
Speaker 2: member Seth Wilson in the Scotsland Show on seven hundred
Speaker 2: w Dow.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 2: Hopefully your commutes okay, And looks like a lot of
Speaker 2: the roads got cleared in the last couple hours anyway
Speaker 2: for those straggling the work.
Speaker 3: Maybe a little bit late this morning. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 2: but far sight better than it was. At least the
Speaker 2: needle is moving in the right direction, slowly with news.
Speaker 2: We'll get a full traffic and weather update seconds away
Speaker 2: here on seven hundred WLW