Over two years ago, the city was caught unprepared when the Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010 (aka Blizzageddon) roared into town—but like a master supervillain, Mayor Bloomberg vowed to learn from those mistakes, and not let things get out of hand during the next snowstorm. Finally, as the end-of-the-universe snowstorm hits us today, the city is rolling out their long-awaited PlowNYC website, which lets people track plows in real-time via GPS. This site makes it clear: New Yorkers ARE tired of having our hands cut off by snowblowers, and we're not going to take it anymore.
The website allows you to track the progress of DSNY plow vehicles (by putting in your address), and to confirm the snow designation of city streets (which are either primary, secondary or tertiary). Bloomberg explained it during his mid-day weather update:
For instance, if you text about a particular street that has yet to be plowed, a 311 representative will make sure that information is passed along to the Sanitation Department. But remember, we do the primary streets first, then we do the secondaries, then the tertiaries. And on the nyc.gov, if you go to Plow NYC, you can see how your street is designated - primary, secondary or tertiary.
So of course—this needs to be restated again—the website won't actually help make snow removal any more efficient: "I don’t know that it necessarily improves our ability to plow,” the mayor previously said about it. “We have the routes, and we are going to do it. But it does let you see where plows went and when they went there.” But it does bring the perception of control, which is something all one needs when they're out of things to binge watch.
