As snow was blanketing (Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs on Monday, February 17th, Todd Wessell, Journal Online Editor & Publisher) spotted an amazing sight at the corner of River Road and Devon Avenue. Six village of Rosemont snowplows were making their way north on River pushing snow from the entire width of the heavily-traveled roadway kitty-corner from Rivers Casino within Rosemont. When they reached Devon, they made a U-turn to head south on River and then left on Higgins Road where they disappeared from sight.
The scene resembled six giant circus elephants, one right after the other, with the smallest plow bringing up the rear.
What also was interesting to observe was that the plows had the ability to use the village’s Opticom™ system, which enables emergency vehicles heading toward an intersection with a traffic light, to push a button inside the vehicle to activate a green light. When this is done crossing traffic is halted at a red light allowing the emergency vehicles to proceed without having to fight dangerous traffic.
“That’s the way they do it all the time,” responded Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens when we asked him about what we observed. He added that his snowplow crews take great pride in their work and that most likely one of the guys behind the wheel of one of the plows was Public Works Director Mike Raimondi…
Source: Journal Online, February 19, 2014