Anchorage city officials say the muni’s Maintenance and Operations Department has a high number of aging snow clearing vehicles, and likely won’t have the chance to replace many of them before winter.
Anchorage Assembly members heard a presentation from city leaders on Friday, dealing with the transition reports from former mayor Dave Bronson to current mayor Suzanne LaFrance. Chief Administrative Officer Bill Falsey said some city vehicles for hauling and clearing snow have a lot of years and miles on them.
“Some of this equipment is shockingly old,” Falsey said. “We have a boiler truck that was purchased in 1986. Some of this equipment is shockingly used. We have (another) boiler truck that has a third of a million miles on it. And it’s not alone.”
Anchorage has seen record-breaking snowfall the past two years, leading to issues ranging from interruptions in school services and hazardous streets to caved-in roofs and large snow berms shrinking road space.
Falsey said clearing snow quickly and effectively is a top priority of the LaFrance administration, and the team has been surveying the maintenance and operations department over their equipment. For snow graders, Falsey said the best practice is to rebuild or replace an engine after 10,000 hours of use. He says more than half of the city’s graders are past that point.
“That is not a problem that is going to be easy to solve before the snow flies this year,” Falsey said. “We said, ‘If we gave you a bunch of money now, could you buy some new graders?’ They said they would not be delivered in time for this winter.”
Falsey said the administration is working to get the city’s snow plow efforts as staffed and prepared as possible before the first snow falls this winter.
He said LaFrance officials are planning a follow-up meeting to present potential solutions to the Assembly on issues laid out in the transition reports.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
