City snow plan details: parking & driving

City rules and information on snow emergencies

Remember that when in severe winter weather, the city snow plan may be in effect.

According to the city, parking cars off-street during snow plow operations greatly enhances the ability of snow plows to remove snow, especially in cul-de-sacs and dead end streets. If a vehicle must park on-street, the following parking practice is being requested:

• On streets that run north/south, park vehicles on the west side of the street.
• On streets that run east/west, park vehicles on the north side of the street.
• Residents parking on signed Emergency Snow Routes should be prepared to find alternate parking locations to avoid vehicles being ticketed or towed.

Please note, vehicles without adequate tire tread that get stuck on a major thoroughfare will be ticketed and towed. Tow storage lot fees will apply.

Snow plow information

The City has approximately 6,300 lane miles of pavement in its street system. To keep traffic moving throughout the City during a winter weather event, the snow plan prioritizes plowing into two types of snow routes: primary/arterial routes and residential routes.

On primary and arterial routes, the City’s Public Works, Parks and Recreation and Water Services departments collaborate on removing snow and ice from approximately 2,400 lane-miles of pavement and apply salt as needed.  These crews plow curb-to-curb and work around the clock.

On residential snow routes, City crews using smaller trucks work 12-hour shifts during daytime hours to provide a passable lane by plowing and applying salt on intersections, hills and curves. As possible, crews will widen the passable lane, which may still have some snow pack due to low pavement temperatures. In the event of severe snow, cul-de-sacs and dead ends will be plowed after arterial, collector and through residential streets. This ensures that City crews may use their resources most effectively.

Reporting slick spots

Residents wanting to report slick spots or missed streets to the City’s 311 Call Center should wait until the next business day after snow has stopped falling. While crews are running assigned snow routes, it is assumed that all streets are slick. Only after snow has stopped falling and all snow routes have been run does the City’s 311 Call Center accept requests for slick spots and missed streets.

More information

• Please visit www.kcmo.org/snow to view the GPS snow plow map and other snow-related updates. Please review the City’s snow safety tips to help prepare: http://kcmo.org/CKCMO/NewsArchives/120413B.
•  To receive text and email notifications from the City, please sign up for the City’s Nixle notification system atwww.kcmo.org/nixle. Residents may also sign up by texting their ZIP code to “888777.”