For the residents of Ames and those students with cars at school, it’s no secret that snow removal in our city is not at its finest hour. A week after the last snow fall, and some roads are still in shabby driving condition, while blinding piles on street sides created by plows make for poor visibility, and don’t seem to be removed.

Is this the fault of the city? It’s hard to say. The operations department charged with clearing the road of snow in the winter is mandated by standards set by the Ames City Council, such as when to clear roads, and the time in which some roads are expected to be cleared after a snowfall.

Going above and beyond these mandates is something the citizens would like to see, the department admits, but, as in the past, it comes down to an issue of money. Partially funded by money generated from gas consumption, the department fund is still suffering from last summer’s low gas consumption, and more money used for snow removal means less money for road work in the summer. It’s a tough call.

Could money come from anywhere else?

Certain streets in Ames enforce daily alternate-side parking, partially for the purpose of adequate snow removal. Anyone who’s left their car on the wrong side of the road knows that the Ames police force is quick on the uptake, and tickets are sometimes written mere minutes after the required time to move. Yet none of the money generated from such tickets is allocated to snow removal operations — one of the main reasons that alternating sides is required in the first place. Under some convoluted fund regulations, this ticket money won’t be seen by the very department that suffers when cars aren’t moved. It certainly seems counter-intuitive to see tickets written every day on the same streets that, a week after the last snow fall, still have slush thick enough to hinder some lightweight sedans.

Regardless of where the funding comes from, there isn’t enough, and something needs to be done to change that. Citizens slipping through the streets days after the last snowfall, or finding themselves blindly turning a corner because of a large snow pile from plows — not removed for lack of money, again — are frustrated with Ames snow removal. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed, yet we’ve seen no improvements since this time last year, when we wrote this same editorial.