Crews Finishing Residential Areas

Moving Graders to Rural Gravel Roads

  
SPOKANE COUNTY, January 13, 2022 – Road crews report that a full-county plow will be completed by the end of Thursday's day-shift (4:00 p.m.). With less than a handful of residential areas to finish, crews are making quick work of clearing those streets. Once completed, Public Works will shift to using graders equipped with “ice bits” to break down patches of compact snow and ice on rural gravel roads. The bottom of the grader blades are equipped with “ice bits” that cut channels into the surface of the ice to accelerate melting and draining – an effective method that takes advantage of the current freeze-thaw-rain cycle.

Public Works has a total of 74 pieces of winter maintenance equipment, including 34 graders. The four road districts have a combined workforce of 55 employees on the day shift (4:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) and another 8 employees working evenings (4:00 p.m. to Midnight) to clear the road system, which is the largest county road system in the State of Washington (5,100+ lane miles).

Spokane County Public Works
The mission of Spokane County Public Works is to provide our citizens and the traveling public with safe and maintained roads, bridges and stormwater facilities through efficient and quality Operations, Construction, Engineering and Planning services.

About Spokane County
Spokane County government serves more than 500,000 citizens and 13 municipal jurisdictions, making it the fourth largest county in the State of Washington.  For more information, visit www.spokanecounty.org, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

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