"500 plows in the whole of the UK"

[randomness]

So, I just heard on PRI's "The World" radio news show that the United Kingdom has 500 snowplows for the entire country.

They gave no context for this number. The story certainly gives the impression that this is very few, but how many is a reasonable number? I don't know how many snowplows Massachusetts has, for example.

Leaving aside whether this is true, whether this number only counts plows under the control of the Ministry of Transport, or what... I still don't know how that number compares with places which get more snow.

I'm not blaming the show, as this was more or less an atmosphere piece about how England has come to a sliding, slippery halt because of the weather; but I am really wondering what a baseline number of plows is for a place that gets snow regularly.

Comments

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

There is something like a "Somerville Magazine", kinda a glossy cover. Anyways, I was reading a part of it at lyonesse's house while out there, and the article I was reading was about snow removal in Somerville, Cambridge, and one other, similar, town.

I only vaguely remember numbers, but Somerville has somewhere between 30 and 60 pieces of snow removal equipment, and have a snow removal budget of about $340K. It is the one budget item that is allowed to go over as needed. Cambridge had somewhere between 50 and 85 pieces of snow removal equipment, and has a snow removal budget of about $500K. I forget the area figures and road mileage figures completely. I didn't finish the article, but it was pretty interesting. (It was nominally about the Somerville manager of snow removal.)

I bet you could figure out what magazine I'm speaking of and find it.