Every comment that I've made in the past regarding snow removal in Waukesha has been positive and this one will be no different.  Way back when, I did a little alley plowing in Milwaukee and drove the big plows and blowers at Timmerman and Capital Airports. So, I know a little bit about what the city street plow drivers have to contend with. It has always been that the biggest complaints about plowing usually come from areas where cars are parked on the streets, making difficult to plow and leaves the street a mess, no fault of the plow drivers.

Yesterday I was in Kenosha for work and the residential roads were not good on the east side of town.  This was likely more due to lake effect snow than on-street parking, but I still saw places where plows had to maneuver around cars and the mess that remains after the car is removed from the pile.

We in Waukesha are fortunate not to have lake effect snow and we are fortunate that most streets are clear of parked cars. However, there are exceptions and I've wanted to write (complain) about this for some time now.  If you search my earlier blogs, I began a short series about some quality of life issues in the city. One that never went beyond the draft stage was about needless parking on the street.

Until I was transferred to another office, I came home on Moreland each day. Each day there was one or two cars parked on the street during rush hour and would cause a bottle neck for the two lanes of traffic. Depending on the mood of all the drivers, merging was seamless or traffic came close to having fender benders. I never saw any reason why that car could not have parked in the driveway, which was empty.  All I could think is that they parked there to make some kind of statement. I've never discussed this with the city but as more traffic comes this way while going home to the outlying developments, no parking signs will appear. Probably AFTER there is an accident with injuries. This is what happens when common sense and courtesy fail.

Back to the snow plowing and parked cars.  I frequently see a driveway full of cars and it is inevitable that some will be parked on the street to let someone else get out or be able to stage their position for later exits. I can sympathize.  I once had five vehicles in my driveway, but am fortunate that they can fit side by side.  Now that the boys are grown and gone, I wish I had a single lane drive every time it snows! I also had relation in Milwaukee with a big house, but no driveway or alley. It was either park in the street or have no cars.

Which brings me to an observation and a question on why it was done this way. That is, driveways are staggered such that they don't face each other. That makes it difficult backing out of one's driveway when a car is parked across the street. One of the few times that I parked a car in front of my house, my neighbor, that was three occupants ago, backed into my little Ford Escort. They weren't used to any car being there.

So I have made a couple points that I'll summarize. First is that the plow drivers have done a great job of clearing the streets. Second is that where there is less that clear streets, it is usually due to parked cars, either legally or illegally parked. Plow drivers can't do anything about that. Common sense and courtesy can, or an ordinance.