Location: Allegheny County’s District 2 Maintenance Garage in Carnegie
Featured guests: Jim Castelluci, maintenance supervisor for Allegheny County District 2, and Nancy Stinner, driver
3 things that surprised me:
1. Jim and his colleagues across Allegheny County are responsible for removing snow and ice on 357 miles of roadway. The county has 50 salt trucks that can go out in shifts to keep roads clean 24 hours a day.
2. There are seven district maintenance facilities across the county — each have their own giant salt dome and fleet of trucks. When we visited, the salt dome had recently been replenished with 1,200 tons of plain rock salt. I was hoping to get to walk inside the dome, but because it was so full of salt, there wasn’t room to do it.
3. Jim brought us to his office where he logged into a program that allows him to track all the salt trucks in his fleet driving across the county. He stays in touch with the drivers to keep everyone informed and to make sure they are working together as efficiently as possible.
One thing that didn’t make the final cut: The county’s maintenance crew usually goes through about 18,000 tons of salt each year, but they used a lot less last year — we received under 18 inches of snow last winter. The county used only 8,399 tons of salt. Jim wasn’t ready to make any predictions regarding whether we’d be breaking salt records this season. It’s too early to tell.
Additional info: While some of the roads in your neighborhood might be plowed by the county, other roads might be taken care of by the city. You can find out who maintains what on the “Who Plows My Road” website.
Want more Yinzer Backstage Pass? Take a tour of P3R’s warehouse in the Strip District where they store all the supplies for the Pittsburgh Marathon.
