City Councilman David Greenfield will be introducing legislation on Wednesday that aims to augment the way pedestrian bridges are cleared after a snowstorm.

Greenfield said the bill is motivated by complaints — many from seniors and senior centers — that too often, pedestrian bridges go uncleared after a blizzard, making the already-steep bridges especially treacherous.

“I hear from seniors that they can’t walk by or if they walk, they fall,” Greenfield explained. “These pedestrian paths at train stations have become a blind spot for the Department of Sanitation.”

The bill calls upon the Department of Sanitation to include in their annual report a list of all the pedestrian bridges in the city, as well as a plan for how they will clear all bridges after a snowstorm.

That plan would explicitly outline which agency is responsible for various bridges, as that can vary.

Greenfield said that a major problem in the past has been finger-pointing among city agencies shirking responsibility.

“You get the blame game,” Greenfield said. “Every agency blames a different agency.”

Since many of the pedestrian bridges are located near or connected to train stations, sometimes the onus is meant to be on the LIRR or the MTA, Greenfield said.

The councilman emphasized the importance of knowing who is responsible prior to the snowstorm, not after the fact. That way, he said, when reports come in of snowed-over pedestrian bridges, he and other councilmembers can advocate for their constituents effectively, contacting the proper agency right away.

The Department of Sanitation said they could not respond to questions about their responsibility for pedestrian bridges without being given exact locations, but they did acknowledge that they are responsible for clearing some bridges.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Heavy snowfall and rain covered nearly all of the drought-stricken U.S. Plains hard red winter wheat region late this week, providing some relief from the worst drought in over a half century, an agricultural meteorologist said on Friday.

“It’s going to help but it’s not a fix, more is needed to bring the area out of drought,” said Andy Karst, meteorologist for World Weather Inc.

Karst said the snowfall amounts were variable with up to a foot or more in the north or roughly 0.75 inch of moisture and another lighter event is headed for the area for the weekend.

“A weaker storm over the weekend will bring another 0.10 inch to 0.35 inch of moisture with a mix of rain and snow,” he said. But “they will need a lot more to improve the drought.”

Commodity Weather Group (CWG) on Friday said the next storm on Sunday and Monday would bring another 4.00 to 8.00 inches of snow from central Kansas into Iowa.

“Drier weather then returns, but these events will put a dent in drought conditions,” said CWG meteorologist Joel Widenor.

Thursday’s weekly Drought Monitor report issued by a group of state and federal climatologists showed 18.66 percent of the contiguous United States was suffering from extreme drought, up from the 17.71 percent a week earlier and the percent in exceptional drought, the worst category, grew to 6.66 percent, up from 6.61 percent the previous week.

Kansas wheat farmers welcomed the winter snowstorm but the drought-stress on the winter wheat crop from seeding time last fall until now probably has harmed some of the crop beyond repair, Karst and other crop experts have said.

Don Keeney, meteorologist for MDA EarthSat Weather, said that as of early February, roughly 4 inches to 6 inches of rain were needed in Kansas, the top producer of hard red winter wheat, to bring the state out of drought status. And up to 8 inches were needed in a pocket of severe dryness in northeastern Kansas, a big corn and grain sorghum growing area.

Similar amounts were needed in Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Missouri and the northern reaches of Illinois and Indiana.

Significant winter rainfall and snow has eliminated the drought for now in an area roughly from Illinois eastward, according to Keeney.

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