Six Neighborhoods Win Snow Gate Sweepstakes

Snow gates will be plowing their way through a half-dozen neighborhoods in Sioux Falls this winter. 

The city announced Wednesday the locations where the snow gates will be put to the test.

In the past, Mayor Mike Huether has said getting your neighborhood included in a snow gate test area is like winning the lottery.  And homeowners within one of the selected areas are feeling pretty lucky.

Lifting leaves by the armload this fall isn't as big a burden as the heavy-duty chore of shoveling come winter.

"That's why I'm trying to get up some of these leaves before it snows, you know," homeowner Kane Kringen said.
Residents in a central Sioux Falls neighborhood like Kringen feel fortunate about being in one of the six snow gate test areas.

"I just moved in under a year ago, I got a park, a great neighborhood, so I'm really excited to have this test thing going on, I think it's going to work out famously," Kringen said.

Snow gates are the attachments to city plows that don't allow snow to pile up at the end of the driveway.  The city is testing whether snow gates can be an effective snow removal tool in Sioux Falls. 

Residents in this neighborhood felt a little left out in previous years when the city would bypass them in favor of other test areas.

"When I heard they were going to do it again, I was hoping they might be because I wasn't picked the last two trials," homeowner Jayne Larson said.

People with corner lots, who have a lot more sidewalk to shove, are really excited about the prospect of being in a snow gate testing zone.

"I have to shovel the sidewalk all the way from the alley to the corner, so that's a lot of shoveling to add that on too, plus it's heavy. It's hard on the back," Larson said.

Critics of snow gates say they slow down plows and leave streets snowbound for longer stretches of time. But residents here are confident the snow gates will pass the test in their neighborhood.

"I think they'll find a lot of people will want to have the snow gates," Larson said.

That central Sioux Falls neighborhood, designated as Area 6, was a control area for snow gate testing two years ago.

To see the six test areas, click here.