OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — If you are in the downtown area often, you know the challenges of getting around right now with all the construction. But what happens when you add snow?
Take 19th and Farnam, for example, right now it's down to just one lane, and in years past, a snowstorm often meant pushing snow into the middle lane here. Reporter Molly Hudson asked the city what their plan is.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
It feels like construction is everywhere we turn.
"Every day it's a different road and it's figuring out which route to take, which route to not take, and it's frustrating and inconvenient," said Vaishnavi, a downtown neighbor.
Austin Rowser with Omaha Public Works says it's both city and private projects happening.
"The majority of what is in the actual travel way, most of the street work is related to the streetcar," Rowser said.
Like any other year, Rowser and his team are gearing up for the upcoming winter months.
"Always excited for winter to come along, we have good crews right now, we are mostly full-staffed in our street maintenance division," Rowser said.
Rowser says they will push snow to the middle lanes where they can, like previous years, but where there are work zones, they'll have to take a different approach.
"Even if that work zone is set up, then we have less volume of snow anyway, so we don't have the same amount of snow that we would push to the side, so we can typically deal with that a lot easier because there is less surface area, fewer lanes that we have to plow," Rowser said.
Neighbors have mixed thoughts on what's to come.
"I don't know if they are going to move the snow to a different area or pile it up in more parking lots, maybe, but I think they will have it pretty well figured out," Vaishnavi said.
"I don't anticipate that this winter will make things easy with all the construction going on," said Devine McKean, an Omaha neighbor.
Rowser says their focus in all parts of the city: get the snow off the roads as fast as they can.
