NYC roads getting plowed quickly after snowfall

The New York City Sanitation Department says it’s made headway on clearing streets after the latest snowfall.

Spokesman Keith Mellis says all arterial highways and primary routes have been plowed at least once.

He says that as of 7 a.m., anywhere from 50 percent to 75 percent of secondary streets have also seen snowplows.

The department has 2,400 employees out working.

The city is using private contractors to clear out the smaller, tertiary streets. Mellis says he doesn’t know how many of those have been reached.

Almost 200 laborers are also at work cleaning snow away from areas like bus stops and crosswalks.

New York City’s public school system will remain open despite the snow, but schools were shut elsewhere, including parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the storm was windier and snow was heavier than expected.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said crews would work even harder after criticism of how the city handled a storm just after Christmas, when hundreds of streets went unplowed, subway riders were stranded and medical calls unanswered because ambulances were unable to navigate snowy streets.

The New York region’s three airports are trying to resume normal operations Wednesday after more than 1,700 flights were canceled due to the overnight snowstorm.

Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, says 1,718 flights had been canceled.

He says there are no significant delays on arriving or departing flights, but advises travelers to check with their airlines to find out who is getting out first Wednesday afternoon as the backlog eases.

Passenger traffic was light Wednesday morning at Newark Liberty International Airport.

In Park Slope, the city plowed early and made second rounds at rush hour. But residents and building superintendents were slow to shovel the light, fluffy snow off the sidewalks. That made it difficult for pedestrians.

The No. 4 from Brooklyn to Manhattan has been running normally. People have even been walking and bicycling across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Snow started falling late Tuesday. By early Wednesday, 8.8 inches accumulated in Central Park, and up to a foot fell in some parts of New Jersey and western Connecticut.

Forecasters expected New York City and its suburbs to get an average of about 9 inches. The heaviest snow was expected on Long Island, with accumulations up to 20 inches in some areas by afternoon.

Amtrak says it has suspended service between New York City and Boston because of storm-related damage.

The passenger train line says on its website that service was suspended around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday because of damage to the overhead power system near Sharon, Mass.

Both the Northeast Regional service and the Acela Express were affected.

It wasn’t immediately clear when service would be restored.

Bloomberg, who was severely chastised by the public for the city’s woeful cleanup efforts following the Dec. 26 blizzard, warned residents Tuesday they likely would wake up to unplowed streets and face a rough morning commute because the latest snowstorm was expected to hit heaviest just before rush hour.

“It’s going to be a difficult, difficult rush hour,” Bloomberg said. “The storm is predicted to be at its heaviest just a few hours before rush hour, and there’s no way that our city’s plows can get to all 6,000 streets in one or two hours.”

The storm is the third to hit New York in less than three weeks, after the Dec. 26 blizzard dumped 29 inches of snow in parts of the city and last week’s threat turned into just a 2-inch dusting. It will be another test for Bloomberg and his commissioners, who have suffered endless criticism for the unplowed streets and uncollected garbage that sullied the city for days after the blizzard.

The city stood ready Wednesday with more than 300 salt spreaders, 1,700 plows, and 200 front-end loaders, backhoes and Bobcats. Sanitation workers were on 12-hour shifts.

In New Jersey, relatively few problems were reported Wednesday and plows were out in force. Locals were keeping a close eye on Gov. Chris Christie, who left for a Disney World family vacation in Orlando, Fla., just before the Christmas blizzard struck the Northeast even though his lieutenant governor also was out of state.

Christie, who was heavily criticized for the trip, has said he and the lieutenant governor wouldn’t be out of state at the same time again and even joked last week about “shoveling myself” to dig people out of snow if necessary.

Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, also declared a snow emergency. Only city and education board employees essential to storm operations were expected at work Wednesday.

Some New Yorkers said they were nervous about the snow, given the city’s poor cleanup of the post-Christmas blizzard.

“I’m not sure anybody’s going to make the right decisions,” said Andre Borshch, of Brooklyn. “Alaska and Canada spend six months like this, and they have no problems, but here in New York, the city doesn’t know what to do with snow. It’s like they’ve forgotten how to do it.”

After the blizzard, city officials admitted mistakes, beginning when commissioners considered calling a snow emergency but didn’t. The snow emergency declaration keeps private vehicles without snow tires or chains off designated snow routes and bans parking along those routes. The city last declared a snow emergency in 2005.

Bloomberg administration officials on Tuesday again decided against declaring a snow emergency, instead issuing a lower-level weather emergency. The move serves mostly as a mechanism to alert local agencies and residents about the seriousness of the storm. It urges motorists to avoid unnecessary driving, informs them that their cars could be towed at their expense if they impede plows and suspends garbage collections and parking meter charges.