Memmingen - The winter service of the municipal building yard is ready for the first use: The salt store and the large silo are well filled with over 1,000 tons of road salt.
The city announced this in a press release.
Although no snow has fallen yet, the building yard vehicles are equipped with snow plows and grit silos every evening for possible use at night.
From 3 am every night between the beginning of November and the end of March, the “Stramot”, the motorized road attendant, is out and about in the city and checks the road surfaces for smoothness.
“The weather report is quite reliable when it comes to snowfall.
We have to check at night whether there is icy frost, ”explains Markus Geikl, head of the municipal building yard.
Winter service is ready
Several of the building yard employees take turns on the nightly Stramot duty. If it is slippery on Memmingen's streets, the Stramot notifies its colleagues and the winter service rolls in: Up to 32 clearing vehicles clear or scatter the streets and paths. Between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., large trucks with snow plows and grit silo are on the road on 280 kilometers of road in the entire city area, as are narrow-gauge vehicles or small tractors on around 100 kilometers of sidewalks and cycle paths, they also clear 30 bus stops and a number of parking spaces. In addition, from 5 a.m. up to 47 hand clearers are in use at traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, zebra crossings and underpasses. "When the first lap for rush-hour traffic is over, it usually starts all over again at 6:30 am when it is snowing," explains Geikl.The winter service is on duty until 9 p.m.
Do not park on the streets
In order to make the work of the clearing vehicles easier, cars should, if at all possible, not be parked in the street, but in the parking lot of your own property.
"If there is a choice, that would be of great help to us," emphasizes the building yard manager.
“It often happens that the large clearance vehicles cannot clear a street because the cars are parked.
Then a narrow-gauge clearing vehicle has to be reordered for this street. ”When clearing, there are streets with first priority, for example Bismarckstraße to the clinic or Rennweg to the fire station, also all streets with school bus traffic.
Side streets or residential streets, on the other hand, have priority two, they are not cleared immediately and not in every round through the city area.
And what do the employees of the building yard do when it's not snowing?
"Every day that the winter service is not needed is a day gained for road work," explains Markus Geikl.
In winter, for example, road shoulders are restored, dirt roads are repaired or potholes are leveled.
Attention property owners
By the way, property owners are obliged to clear sidewalks of snow and ice or to have them cleared.
If possible, the snow from the sidewalks should be stored on your own property and not shoveled onto the road that has already been cleared.
The building yard has set up a service telephone for questions about winter service: Telephone 08331 / 850-900.
(MK)