Chicago City Wire

CHICAGO – The Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS) today announced the City’s second annual ‘You Name A Snowplow’ contest. Chicago residents are once again encouraged to create innovative snowplow names and submit them to www.chicagoshovels.org by January 12, 2023. At the end of the contest, DSS will pick the top six names, and those names will represent one snowplow in each of the City’s six snow districts, joining the named snowplow fleet announced earlier this year. 

Due to a near-tie for sixth place, seven winning names were chosen for the first contest, including:

1. Mrs. O’Leary’s Plow
2. Da Plow
3. Salter Payton
4. Sears Plower
5. Sleet Home Chicago
6. Holy Plow!
7. Jean Baptiste Point du Shovel

“We were thrilled with the Chicago pride and participation in the inaugural contest announced last year,” said DSS Commissioner Cole Stallard. “The contest reminds residents of the hard work that goes into clearing snow and ice each year, while fostering community engagement citywide. We can’t wait to see this year’s submissions.”

Like the first contest, this year’s event will have two phases. First, the City will gather names from the submissions, which are limited to one per person and 50 characters in length. When the submission period closes on January 12, 2024, or when the City receives 20,000 submissions, whichever comes first, DSS staff will choose 50 finalists. In the second phase, which will begin on January 22, 2024, residents may vote for up to six names of their choice by February 2, 2023. The top six vote-getting names will be featured on one snowplow in each of the City’s six snow districts. 

Once the names are chosen, signage for the winning snowplow names will be installed on the snowplows, and residents who submitted the winning names (earliest time stamp when there are multiple submissions) will be offered a photo opportunity with the named snowplow along with city swag. 

All residents will be able to view the named snowplows, along with the city’s full snow fleet, in real-time during winter storms via the City’s newly updated plow tracker.  

DSS manages more than 9,400 lane miles of roadway with a fleet of over 300 salt spreaders that are fully prepared to respond when needed, along with more than 400,000 tons of salt stationed at salt piles throughout the city.  

Original source can be found here.