Snow Puts Big Squeeze On Local Roads

PHILADELPHIA - City streets crews are working hard to keep Philadelphia moving in the aftermath of the big storms.

The last flakes fell about 40 hours before the Friday afternoon rush, and with city government and businesses fully back in action, it seemed like a good day to gauge Philadelphia's street cleanup.

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Fox 29's Bruce Gordon reported from the middle of rush-hour traffic on Seventh Street near the Vine Street Expressway that there are still plenty of problems.

Like so many Philly streets, traffic is jammed, and mountains of snow are not helping. Call it the "big squeeze."

Lots of cross streets – major arteries, linking, for example, I-95 with the historic district – saw lanes reduced or even eliminated by mountains of plowed snow.

It helped keep traffic on the inbound Ben Franklin Bridge heavy long beyond the usual end of the morning rush.

The turn lane from Callowhill onto 4th Street was snow-packed, creating a bottleneck that backed up onto northbound 95.

And Fourth street itself? A day-and-a-half after the storm subsided, it was an icy, one-lane goat path.

Getting around in Manayunk is no easy task. The streets are still snow covered, the snow is piled high and the hills in this part of the city make things even more interesting.

Everyone has their own horror story.

One man said Diamond Street was packed and kind of rutty.

A woman said, "It's just too hard to get out of the block- they haven't plowed anything on my block."

A man said some intersections are completely iced over in the morning and "completely treacherous."

"It's not terrible, but parking is horrendous," a woman said. "And once you move your car, there's absolutely nowhere to put it."

The Parking Authority is offering free meters till next Tuesday. Of course, the offer doesn't mean much if you can't get to the curb.

SEPTA is also offering some special deals for the weekend to try and get visitors downtown and help out local merchants.

The past two days have been cold but sunny. It's amazing, how effective the sun can be, in melting snow and ice from the streets. Of course, hoping for sunshine is not really a cleanup strategy.

Streets Commissioner Clarena Tolson joined the Fox 29 News at 5 on Friday to let us know what to expect over the weekend and into the new work week.

As frustration mounts over unplowed city streets, one local business was taking action.

On Quarry Street in Old City Philadelphia, one business hired a company with a front-end loader to get the job done, Fox 29's Dave Schratwieser reported.

Philadelphia International Airport officials said they are open. Check with your airline or MyFoxPhilly.com's airport status tracker for updates.

Hundreds of

schools reported closings

this week, including Philadelphia on Friday, but some decided to reopen to get a day of classes in Friday before the holiday weekend.

The good thing is there's still plenty of snow around to make it a little more bearable. In Voorhees, kids in their backpacks climbed a small mountain of snow while waiting for the bus to school.

As for power outages, there has been amazing progress down at the shore after all those that occurred over the past week. At one point, Cape May County had 109,000 customers out.

By Friday night, crews had knocked that number down to just over 2,000, and there are scattered outages elsewhere in South Jersey.

Power companies from across the nation are jumping in to help PECO recover from this storm. More than 1,000 workers from crews as far as Illinois and Michigan came in to help the utility restore outages this morning.

Since the most recent snowfall, PECO crews have gotten power back up and running to 200,000 customers. Only a few thousand remain in the dark.

PennDOT workers have been racking up the overtime over the past week. Two blizzards have kept them busy. And it's costing the state a bundle.

But it's not as bad as you think.

Gov. Ed Rendell explained to Fox 29 on Friday afternoon that Mother Nature has balanced things out.

"We've gotten actually less snow in the northern half of the state than we normally get in winter," Rendell said. "So it sort of counter balances the extra money we had to spend in the southern half of the state."

The governor said the real money problems are in the counties, townships and municipalities. He said state officials are tallying up the numbers to see if the commonwealth qualifies for federal disaster aide. If that's the case, that money will go to cash-strapped cities and towns.

Official snow totals from Tuesday and Wednesday's storm showed that Chester, Berks, Montgomery and Bucks counties took the brunt of it.

Ridley Park had another 21.5 inches, on top of 30 inches it received Saturday.

East Nantmeal in Chester County had almost 27 inches. Eagleville in Montgomery County had 23 inches, while spots like Perkasie, Montgomeryville,