Anchorage city officials announced Tuesday a new website that they say will serve as a one-stop shop for information about snow removal. The launch coincides with the first major snowfall of the season and follows recent winters in which record-breaking storms resulted in snow-covered streets that brought life in the city to a standstill for days.

Brendan Babb said prior to the launch of the new website, various information about snow removal is spread across eight different City of Anchorage websites and across numerous departments.

“There are 12 departments involved in snow removal and we have been meeting regularly over the last three months trying to come up with creative solutions,” Babb said.

Babb leads the city's innovation team and said they wanted to create a single place online where residents could find all the snowplow information they need.

“Our thinking all along was: If you know it's going to snow overnight, you wake up in the morning, pick up your phone from your bedside table and go to muni.org/plow, what information do you want to see to make decisions? about your day?” Babb said.

The result is a website with a series of maps, including one on the status of sidewalk clearance and another for neighborhood streets. Additionally, you can report a snow-related safety hazard and request that a bus stop be cleared. You can even get information about which agency owns which roads and how to report property damage from a snowplow.

Every day at around 6:30 a.m. the site receives updates on snow removal.

Michael Knapp heads the city's Geographic Information System (GIS) department. He said that with any plowing schedule, the arterial roads – the main roads with the most traffic – are always plowed first. Then the plows move into residential areas.

“Road maintenance has divided the Anchorage Bowl into about 50 sectors,” Knapp said. “And so they have been communicating internally for years that they are sending graders to clear residential streets.”

The snow plow plans alternate between A and B. So if your roads were cleared first in this storm, they will be cleared last in the next storm.

“The goal is equity, so we don’t always go after (the same sector) first,” Babb said. “So it’s really about breaking that down. But yes, you could plan some things for the future that way.”

Babb said the innovation team already has plans for some updates to the site, including adding GPS trackers to all snowplows.

“We will work with the GIS to create a publicly accessible map so you can see it,” Babb said. “It's not quite like Pac Man, but you see 30 plows driving around and you know the type of areas or what streets have been plowed.”

Babb said he appreciated the cross-departmental collaboration that led to the snowplow website. He said the website adds to the transparency Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration has already provided about the snowplow battles it has faced this year.

“We know we won’t have new plows until next year,” Babb said. “We probably don’t have any more plowers and we don’t have a new GPS yet. So what creative ways are there to better clear the streets and communicate with residents to let them know what’s going on?”

Babb said his team plans to update the site regularly in the coming months.

The website also has a section where residents can provide feedback, and Babb said he hopes people reach out with their problems and their own suggestions for how to make the site easier to use.