Multiple agencies responsible for snow removal, but who answers complaints?

With a major snowstorm set to hit this week, road districts and public works agencies are preparing for formidable weather and difficult commutes throughout McHenry County. Motorists navigating snow-covered roadways might grumble about travel conditions.

The city of Crystal Lake fields plenty of complaints about how roads are plowed during snow storms, Public Works Director Mike Magnuson said.

Mayor Haig Haleblian, on the other hand, said he has fielded only accolades on how roads are handled during storms.

“I get more compliments on our snow plowing efforts in the city than just about anything else,” Haleblian said. “The roads just seem to be very well maintained in this town and public works does a tremendous job staying on top of it.”

Magnuson said the city of Crystal Lake will pass along some complaints to the Illinois Department of Transportation garage in Woodstock – which is where state snow plows originate for the Crystal Lake area – but not to Springfield. In addition, assistant to the city manager Nick Hammonds said issues are passed on to the IDOT office in Schaumburg.

But neither the city nor IDOT keeps a log of complaints, according to city officials and department spokeswoman Maria Castaneda said.

During bad storms, busy thoroughfares that run through Crystal Lake and McHenry County – including Routes 14, 31 and 176 – are maintained by different agencies along the way, but there is coordination and other attempts to mitigate any delays or lag time between plowing, Magnuson said.

“If we see something out on the road that’s an issue, especially for first responders, we’ll reach out [to IDOT],” Magnuson said. “During large storms, we do talk with IDOT to make sure what they are doing. But there’s not always a paper trail. Each storm is different.”

IDOT handles maintenance and snow removal for Route 31, but the city of Crystal Lake plows the parts of Route 14 and 176 that fall in Crystal Lake under a maintenance agreement between the city and the state, Castaneda said.

For plowers, having advance notice is key, and a storm with heavy snowfall forecasted ahead of time is actually easier to deal with than the “sudden burst” over a small area, which is what happened during the first storm of the year on Nov. 17, Magnuson said.

During that storm, despite a handful of complaints about icy roads, the Crystal Lake Police Department reported only two crashes, neither related to weather, the deputy police chief said.

In McHenry, there were four crashes that weekend, McHenry Police Department spokesman Michael Spohn said.

Crystal Lake resident Ashley Errera was on her way to McHenry that night.

“The roads were really slick and cars were sliding a lot” between Bull Valley and McHenry, she said. Despite being re-routed around a portion of Ridgefield Road near McHenry County College, she saw only one salt truck on the road along her route.

Crystal Lake road crews will plow sections of Routes 14 and 31 that IDOT normally maintains if police and fire report they are having a difficult time, Magnuson said.

Despite not logging complaints, the Crystal Lake’s public works agency does monitor social media during storms to see if there are problem spots along routes the city covers, and public works staff will go out to “keep an eye on the roads” and check for quality control, Magnuson said.

IDOT also measures and reviews traffic data on an annual basis, relying on local and state police reports to assess whether snow and ice removal equipment is working properly and needs to be replaced, Castaneda said.

State Rep. Suzanne Ness, D-Crystal Lake, said she has never received snow complaints from constituents, with one exception. During a snow storm at the end of 2021, the village administrator in Huntley called her to complain that IDOT hadn’t cleaned up a state road that had led to several crashes.

“I remember thinking how bad the roads were even though they knew this was coming,” Ness said. “But it was the perfect storm of bad weather event and temperatures dropped, always a bad combo.”

Nevertheless, after reaching out to IDOT, crews went to Huntley and cleaned the road, Ness said, adding that overall, she said she thinks IDOT did a good job of alerting the public on real-time road conditions.

The call to get trucks out on the road often comes from the county sheriff’s office, as the county departments will typically see the weather before anyone else and then put out a priority blast to other agencies such as the road districts, Nunda Township Highway Commissioner Mike Lesperance said.

The McHenry County Division of Transportation, which monitors road data through weather information systems and during storms, has a “snow desk duty” team monitoring conditions, spokesman Christopher Grask said.

“It would be nice to be out before the weather hits,” Lesperance said, “but there’s a 30-minute delay between a surprise storm and when we can hit the road. Our trucks are fully maintained and plow ready. We have a pretty good system, but nothing is perfect.”

This year, Nunda Township added one additional plow to its fleet, but also six miles of roadway in Holliday Hills to its plowing area, Lesperance said.

Grask said more caution in general is needed when driving in storms.

“Whether something is being put down or not [by road crews], people should take extra time commuting,” Grask said. “The first snow or ice event, people jump around, forget what to do in the situation. Some people over correct. But drivers need to allow crews to operate and for other people to deal with the drive as well. It’s OK to go below the speed limit during inclement weather.”

If the more drastic forecasts come true this week, the best way to stay safe on icy roads would be to not drive at all, Magnuson said.

“Our best advice would be to get everything you need done by Wednesday,” Magnuson said. “Stay home Thursday and Friday; travel will be tough with blowing and drifting even after our plows are out.”