"Most cities deal with this. Muncie can't or won't," said a Ball State student survey respondent, regarding the unplowed streets in Muncie.
According to a survey taken by 56 Ball State students, 89.3 percent of respondents have been inconvenienced in some way due to Muncie's unplowed streets. Also 60.7 percent of survey respondents say that their overall driving experience with Muncie unplowed streets was very unfavorable or unfavorable.
Muncie may not have a history of great roads or road conditions, but the city could learn a lesson from neighboring cities to see how they are getting things done. According to Wendell Cox Consultancy, Carmel and Muncie both have populations just under 70,000. Muncie is responsible for plowing 365 miles of road and Carmel is responsible for 388 miles. The difference is Carmel Street Department has 66 plows and Muncie has 12. Carmel's plows include 18 salt trucks, 30 dump trucks with plows and 20 trucks with blades.
Street Commissioner Dave Huffman said Carmel makes such an extreme effort to keep their streets plowed because, "In Carmel, we are afforded to be able to keep our streets plowed, but we do so in order to get the city done in a timely manner for public safely issues and so that ambulance, trash and postal services aren't slowed down or stopped. Although, people aren't going to perish if their trash isn't picked up, some of the seniors in town are dependent on receiving checks in the mail. Our people and their safety are a priority."
People could argue that the average income in Carmel is substantially higher, however, even cities, such as Anderson with 15,000 fewer people and 43 plows, are still getting the job done. Kokomo is even smaller than Anderson and still has 29 plows, 17 more than Muncie.
Aside from money, there are other variables in the snow plow equation, said Ron Ball, supervisor of the Muncie Street Department.
"We plow the main and secondary roads first and don't normally get to the residential roads in time because the roads have already frozen over," he said. "Those roads freeze over because we can't salt them. Salt is one of the most expensive parts of the street department's budget. It would destroy our budget if we had to salt the residential roads."
Ball was frustrated citizens don't believe the street department does anything. His too-small staff of 20 people does the work as fast as it can.
"Other street departments our size have anywhere from 50-60 people doing the amount of work that we do," Ball said.
At times, the office workers have had to help plow roads, he said. "When the state cuts the budget, there are going to be less hired hands," Ball said. "You have to keep things in a balanced perspective though. There are a lot of things that need to be done in Muncie aside from plowed roads, but it's just not feasible with the amount of money that we have."
Muncie's lack of money translates into an understaffed street department and lack of salt and plows. But where is the proof that residents are getting into accidents because of unplowed streets? After being sent 17 different directions to find the statistics, I came to the city engineer's office. In a corner boxes were stacked three high. I had to look through thousands of filed away accident reports from last winter to see if "roadway surface area" was a contributing factor. It was impossible, to go through these reports in a timely manner because they weren't electronic and couldn't be easily sorted.
Muncie could benefit from electronically filing its accident reports so it could see patterns or repeated contributing factors like "roadway surface area" problems during the winter.
Benjamin Thomas, life-long resident and Ball State student does not believe a lack of money or accident report filing system is a compelling enough argument for poorly plowed streets.
"There are many different factors in unmanaged streets, but it all comes back to a city's government and public officials," he said. "In some ways I believe we have an inefficient government because their priorities aren't in the public interest. If they were trying to take care of their citizens, they would put money toward trying to prevent accidents and inconveniences by making sure roads are clear and of good quality. Our neighboring cities seem to be making it happen."
Becky Miller is a senior public relations major and wrote this 'Your Turn' for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Becky at rsmiller@bsu.edu
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