rupted commerce, especially in retail, commercial and amusement lines. Therefore, for many worthwhile reasons snow should not interrupt nor even seriously discommode pedestrians. Crosswalks, safety zones, public sidewalks and gutters must be kept clean by the city and sidewalks abutting private property must be cleaned by occupants.

Compare a modern street carrying passenger and freight traffic, to a railroad line, of double to six-track capacity, but with a frequency of passing vehicles hundreds of times greater, and of much more flexibility, and therefore greater hazard, as to line of travel and the personal equation.

In addition to street car borne traffic, Detroit has 260 city-owned coaches or small busses, 364 privately-owned busses, 700 outlawed, but very active jitneys, and approximately 250,000 privately-owned passenger autos. Because of phenomenal expansion, wholesome home loving instincts and high wages, Detroit is dependent upon private cars, to a very appreciable extent, to get to its widely separated outlying plants, as well as to "get down town." Our freight traffic by trucks and trailers can be imagined from our approximate 40,000 commercial vehicles. In many cases these trucks haul trailers with a capacity of several steam road freight cars. Inter-plant shipment of auto bodies and parts, to different sections of the city is customary and its stoppage would be far reaching and serious. Fire and police protection cannot function over snow-bound streets, and accidents in traffic mount rapidly with rutted icy highways. Reca!] the six-track railroad, as in a busy terminal yard, and imagine when those tracks are out of line and surface, and perhaps covered with ice. That is a snow-bound main artery street in Detroit.

The foregoing whys and where fores of snow removal are more or less applicable to all large cities climatically located as is Detroit. The methods of handling snow removal in Detroit are not unique but are we believe economic, conservative and modern.

A snow storm is of its very nature, spectacular, and its results are disorganizing. It is therefore of prime importance in this work that city snow forces be organized in advance, so as to offset, as far as possible the tendency to confusion that arises during a storm. To this end Detroit each Fall takes the following preliminary steps and precautions so as to be ready to cope with the storm, as the snow falls, rather than to try and dig its way out after the storm is over. The forces are divided into two shifts, a day and a night shift of ten hours each, with a one hour interval for lunch. The day shift starts at 7:00 a. m. and continues to 6:00 p. m., while the night

shift

Starts at 7:00 p. m. and continues to 6:00 a. m. Each shift is

assigned to one of our Division Superintendents. Reporting to the Division Superintendent is the Superintendent of Equipment on the night shift and the Assistant Superintendent of Equipment on the

day shift. The night work is by far the heaviest and most effective. Equipment operators for loaders, cranes, plows, tractors, etc., are carried over from Summer operation on street sweepers, flushers and similar equipment. The time of these operators between Summer operation and the snow cleaning is utilized, with some reduction in force, to overhaul and repair all equipment which these men drive, thus giving the better men an all-year-around job and giving the city steady skilled operators, who are the better operators for doing much. of their own repair work.

Preliminary to the snow season all equipment is carefully gone over and put in first-class operating condition, so as to be ready for use at a moment's notice. Snow loaders and cranes receive the last attention as they are utilized throughout the year loading and digging in connection with the street and sewer construction. The City of Detroit has three belt-conveyor snow loaders, one of which is equipped with a side loading attachment; two truck-mounted cranes with special light weight 11-yard snow buckets; 13 plows for mounting on fiveton trucks; one ten-ton and two five-ton caterpillar tractors for heavy plowing; seven one-man Fordson graders which can be used for plowing work in addition to truck plows. Detroit has endeavored to be conservative in its purchase of equipment, recognizing that two to three weeks usage is about all that can be anticipated for it, in snow service. We have therefore endeavored to get equipment 、 which may also be used for other work than snow removal, so that it may be considered a year 'round investment.

During the snow period the switchboard is manned night and day with an operator to receive incoming calls from machine operators and foremen assigned to snow work, and a list of foremen for snow cleaning is made out in advance of the season and these men are instructed to call up in case of a snow of any magnitude. They are selected not only for their fitness in this class of work and their physical ability to stand long cold hours, but for the ability of the districts from which they are withdrawn to permit of their absence from normal duties.

Detroit has found it more expedient to rent trucks for its major requirements rather than to purchase and operate trucks. We, therefore, have a list of private trucks in the hands of our Employment Department that can be called at any hour of the day or night, and from which a fair percentage will report for work promptly. In addition to extra trucks, many of our alley trucks, that have worked during the day, are double-crewed and report on snow work during the night. There are also a number of truck owners who are accustomed to applying for snow work at our White Wing Headquarters in the center of the city. For labor we depend on a socalled floating element who seem accustomed to apply for this class of work in large numbers during the snow storms. Last winter

we employed as high as 815 men and 156 trucks on the night shift. with 193 men and 105 trucks in the day shift. Labor is paid daily at 10:00 o'clock on the day succeeding the work performed, at place of employment, namely, the Central White Wing Headquarters, at Woodward and Woodbridge streets. This station is especially adapted for handling men on snow work. There is much human interest in the class of labor that comes out on the night shift, as many of these men are employed part time during the day or are temporarily out of work and wish to secure the 55 cents per hour that the city pays them. While many of them are poorly clad and ill-prepared for wet weather, causing them to quit by midnight on account of wet feet. They will readily stay through to morning on a cold night when their feet remain dry. Both for the good of the men physically and the operating efficiency of the city, bob-fires for warming are provided. Men who work close to Division Headquarters come into same during lunch hour and every effort is made to provide for their comfort. White wings equipped with rubber boots and oil skins are a nucleus for emergency work that can take care of the very small snow falls, assisted with a few extra laborers. Extra men for snow cleaning are taken into the White Wing building in lots of about 200, which is the capacity of the general assembly room in the basement. Their name and address is entered on the payroll and they are given a card. When called out for work, in squads of 20 under a foreman, men are passed through a railed runway where their cards are punched for the time of employment and each man is handed a low-priced shovel. The foreman then takes his squad of 20 men to the point assigned him for work and throughout the job punches the card of each of his laborers once an hour. This system, like any other, is beatable, but its weaknesses need not be advertised. It is simple and after many years of usage seems as good as any for

Detroit.

Returning to the thought that preparedness is all-essential in this work, Detroit prepares each year, or revises its last year's so-called snow map. This is a map of the downtown section of Detroit, comprising about forty miles of streets and includes the financial, hotel, shipping, retail and theater districts, which area Detroit considers necessary to first clean free of snow. Considerable detailed information is shown on this map accompanying this paper, all of which is pertinent to the thoroughfares and routes of snow cleaning. The essential point about the map is that the attention of the directing head of the work is not diverted in a snow storm to planning emergency activities and that the work as a whole is pictured to the superintendent in charge of each shift as to the routes for his snow loaders, locations of hand gang, and available dumps. The map also shows a considerable area of public sidewalks which, together with safety zones, important pedestrian street crossings and all sidewalks within street intersections that must be cleaned. Within the boun

daries of this map it is assumed that a 3-inch snow fall can be cleaned by the department within 12 hours, using its available equipment and operators, supplemented with 400 day laborers. In previous years Detroit has used a map of considerable less detail, depending upon expediency in generalship to get men and equipment to the places most needed. It is hoped that with the present map in full detail work will be more closely systematized this year than previously.

Of no small value is the excellent co-operation of the United States Weather Bureau, under Mr. Norman Conger, in giving the department advance notification of what to expect in the way of temperatures and precipitation. In addition to calling our headquarters, the Weather Bureau also notifies the writer personally at his house of anticipated weather conditions and, contrary to the public belief, these predictions are almost universally correct. Without weather forecast snow cleaning cannot be done economically nor intelligently. Two factors in weather forecast are important, namely, amount of snow fall and temperatures. The amount governs the size of the job and is a determining factor of how many men and trucks to employ. The temperature is an important factor in determining not only how much work may be necessary to do but how it should be done. Snow is a remarkably variable material. Omitting freezing rains and hail storms from classification as snow, there remains a wide variety of kinds of snow. A wet snow requires prompt opening of gutters on a rising temperature. In a dry snow with a falling temperature, gutter drainage is not essential and if further cold weather may be anticipated streets may be readily cleaned by plowing to the gutter and picking up afterwards as soon as possible. While there are a few underlying principles on treatment of snow, the writer hesitates to make any recommendations other than that each storm should be carefully diagnosed in respect to what kind of weather is ahead. Much money can be saved on heavy automobile traffic streets at the beginning of the snow season by allowing the snow to mush up under traffic while keeping the gutters and catch basins open. Much money can be lost by allowing snow to freeze in and having to pick it. Unfortunately no snow cleaning system. works perfectly, at least if any degree of economy is practiced, and therefore, in some parts of the city, such as outlying portions of main arteries, snow may freeze into the gutter before labor and equipment can be withdrawn from the heart of the city. We have tried ice plowing with variable degrees of success and our general conclusion to date is that there is no machine on the market that will successfully remove ice frozen tight to the pavement. If the ice is appreciably rotted or thawed away from the pavement it may be scarified or plowed. In one case last winter we used salt in advance of a 10-ton caterpillar tractor and special scarifier with a fair degree of success.