Previously plowed snow remained on major state roadways such as Rockville Pike Friday morning, shrinking those routes by at least one lane and angering commuters.
But a spokesperson for the State Highway Administration, which controls Rockville Pike and other major local roads, said state crews are on their sixth consecutive day of around-the-clock cleanup operations and that removing leftover snow is a laborious process.
“Since there is no place left to put the snow, we literally have to move it one loader, then one dump truck at a time,” SHA spokesperson David Buck said. “I am not sure people have any perspective on how long it takes to pick up and move this much snow, but we continue to work to open all lanes.”
Buck said he was at the agency’s Emergency Operations Center earlier this week and watched as three front-end loaders and three dump trucks worked in tandem nonstop for nine hours to clear about two miles of snow from a lane on I-270.
“It takes a lot of time,” Buck said.
Traffic cameras show conditions on area state roads Friday morning (top two) and Thursday evening (bottom two) via Montgomery County
The SHA’s first priority after record snowfall of about two feet in many places throughout the state was to keep at least one lane on all of its roads passable. The next priority was to open all lanes on its interstates, such as I-270 and the Capital Beltway.
Buck said by mid-week, SHA crews were able to start hauling away leftover snow from secondary roads such as Rockville Pike. The agency redeployed equipment from the Eastern Shore to assist the effort in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and crews will continue working over the weekend.
On Friday morning, snow remained in the curbside lane of much of southbound Rockville Pike, all the way from Rockville to the Washington, D.C., line in Friendship Heights.
Snow also remained in lanes of Connecticut Avenue and East West Highway.
With many people returning to work Wednesday and Thursday, evening commutes on both days were made worse by shrinking road widths.
Full lanes of northbound Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike remained covered with snow in Bethesda, creating traffic back-ups into downtown Bethesda and motivating drivers to navigate smaller neighborhood roads to try to find a way out.
Major state roads elsewhere in Montgomery County remained in similar condition. A Twitter user in Wheaton complained Thursday evening about closed lanes near Westfield Wheaton mall, where state-controlled Georgia Avenue and Veirs Mill Road intersect.
The response from the person running the SHA’s Twitter account: “it was a blizzard. Patience please. Our crews are working 24/7.”
