AURORA | It’s snowy season, and even though there isn’t any snow, the city is staying prepared.
Aurora is a big, sprawling city, and the amount of snow that can dump at any time makes for a challenging and unpredictable job for city staff clearing the roads.
Every time a storm rolls in, the staff needs to decide how severe it will be and how to prioritize cleanup.
“The goal of public works during a snowstorm is to ensure that our emergency services — fire, police, and EMS — remain functional during snow events,”said Kurt Muehlemeyer, director of Public Works.
As most can imagine, “more snow equals more resources,” Muehlemeyer said.
Although the year was shaping up to be a snowy winter in Colorado, city staff are now predicting it will be a “La Niña” year, with dry, warmer temperatures.
Storms are categorized by the amount of snow they drop. Trace to two inches of snow is Category One, and two to six inches is Category Two. These two categories make up 80% of the storms the city sees, according to Muehlemeyer.
“The difference between Category One and Category Two is plowing,” Muehlemeyer said. “If we have to plow snow, it requires more resources. If we can just use our deicing materials to melt it, it requires less.”
Category Three is six to 12 inches, and Category Four is “kind of Snowmageddon, if you will,” Muehlemeyer said.
“We make staffing decisions based on the type of storm,” Muehlemeyer said. “That includes equipment. It’s all dependent.”
When the snow falls, the city streets are then prioritized in a particular order. Priority one is the main or primary arterial roadways, such as Alameda Avenue, Chambers Road and Havana Street. The city prioritizes roads by color, with primary arterial roads marked in red.
Priority two is blue, and these roads are primary collector roads, which include roads to hospitals and schools.
Priority three is green and includes connector residential streets or through streets.
Priority four is yellow and includes the many North/South and East/West connectors in the East area, which are considered outlying rural roads, according to Muehlemeyer.
“Those are how our operators are looking at the maps and servicing roadways based on priority,” Muehlemeyer said.
The city then uses two forms of de-icer: liquid and granular. Sometimes they use a combination of the two. They use different de-icers for different occasions.
Mayor Mike Coffman clarified that the city does not use sand or gravel in its granular deicer. The city uses a granular deicer called Ice Slicer, which is almost 100% salt and mineral colored orange, according to Muehlemeyer.
The city can send out 90 pieces of equipment, and although that sounds like a lot, Aurora is a large place, Muehlemeyer said.
The city uses up to 60 snow plows, and the other 30 pieces it can use include front-end loaders, more graders and snow blowers, Muehlemeyer said.
“The priority red, blue, green and yellow are just under 1,600 lane miles,” Muehlemeyer said. “For a point of reference, right, 1,600 lane miles will be enough to make a two-lane road from here to Wentzville, Missouri.”
Streets and public works staff can handle a category one storm, but when higher categories dump many flurry inches, they need to call in their “sister departments,” including Parks and Recreation, Open Space, and even Aurora Water.
“We need them to supplement our operations so that we can staff all of our vehicles,” Muehlemeyer said.
Sidewalk snow removal is not part of the city’s snow and ice control plan, but once the city enters a Category Three storm or higher, space becomes limited, Muehlemeyer said.
“We’re moving snow from the middle to the side,” Muehlemeyer said. “Sometimes that goes on sidewalks. If we put snow on the sidewalks, we will remove it.”
Ice cutting is a more heavy-duty approach for handling thick ice. The city does not offer it as a standard service, but after a snowstorm, staff will go out and address problem areas, especially north-facing ones.
We do have some trouble spots that we know about, and we patrol on a regular basis,” Muehlemeyer said. “All this work is completed during regular hours. We do not do this on overtime.”
The city uses Access Aurora to receive public requests and dispatch staff. In 2021 and 2023, Muehlemeyer said the city had a total of 3,460 ice-cutting requests.
The city has started to work with neighborhoods in more rural parts of Aurora to help with the load.
After the 2019 Bomb Cyclone, the city began considering partnering with Homeowners’ Associations and Special Districts to plow snow in residential neighborhoods.
At the direction of Councilmember Françoise Bergan and following a successful pilot project with the Blackstone neighborhood, the city implemented a process that allows special districts and HOAs to enter into Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) with the city to perform their own snow removal within their areas. The city currently has three areas: Blackstone, Forest Trace and South Shore.
“They’re required to remove the snow from the roadways and take it off-site to a place that they designate within the IGA,” Muehlemeyer said.
The agreements include liability insurance through the city and require that HOAs or special districts use equipment that meets the city’s standards, according to Muehlemeyer.
Bergan said that one of the misunderstandings among some metro districts and homeowner associations is that they think that, if they sign up for this agreement, they have to plow. When all it does is allow them to decide what inch height of snow requires them to call a contractor.
Great article! What would be really helpful is an objective benchmark comparision of the city’s snow removal capabilities vs. other Colorado cities. Compile it per lane mile. Are we above or below average?
Also what percentage of city revenue is dedicated to snow removal? How does that percentage compare to other Colorado cities?
That said, CM Bergan’s pilot program should give every homeowner serious pause. Having an HOA or Metro District take over any city duty couldn’t be more expensive for the homeowner. The HOAs and MDs that participate will individually contract for services at much higher costs due to the non-value administrative nonsense replicated across the many contracts. Those higher costs will be passed on to the homeowners. And once the precedent is set, it becomes a cost savings strategy for the city but at a higher expense to the homeowner.
Moreover, the HOAs and MDs can’t necessarily be trusted to control costs. Each depends on a competent board and that depends directly on fully engaged homeowners. But when over 95% of homeowners choose to remain clueless on their duties with HOA/Metro District governance, the homeowners get fleeced.
Better funding solution: Fix the pitiful retail tax base — a problem CM Bergan and the other ultra-conservatives simply refuse to acknowledge as they play such games to shift costs, close facilities and borrow money for simple street maintenance.