Landscape Services crew works day and night to keep campus safe and accessible
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Written by: Office of Strategic Communication

Shawn Fitzpatrick, supervisor of UI Landscape Services, offers the following little-known factoids about the hard work and resources that go into keeping the UI campus safe and accessible during the winter months.

Did you know?

  • During a typical winter season, UI Landscape Services responds to 15 to 20 snow events per year.  UI Police contacts the snowplow drivers when the snow first begins to fall.  This can happen at any time of day or night. 
  • The snowplow driver then initiates a phone tree calling system once the sidewalks become white with snow so the skid steer operators, Sidewalk Sander operators, and shovel crews can respond.  The snow plow drivers start the calling procedure around  3 a.m.

At the main campus:

  • Landscape Services is responsible for snow removal on some of the west side campus roads, sidewalks, and building entrances.  UI Hospitals and Clinics, Athletics, and Tenant Properties are responsible for their own.
  • UI Housing contracts with Landscape Services for snow removal.
  • They have four snow plow operators who rotate driving two trucks for approx. 21 lane-miles of Institutional Roads ( Newton Road, Hawkins Drive, the main road through the Aspire apartments, UI Hospitals and Clinics access roads, main roads through parking lots, etc. ). 
  • The City of Iowa City is responsible for the roads on the east side of the Iowa River.
  • UI Landscape Services has nine skid steer operators who remove snow from the 69 miles of sidewalks on campus.
  • They have 2 Toro mowers, which can be converted to a track system for winter snow removal work. These are used on the sidewalks that are less than 6 feet wide.
  • Landscape Services has  two Tonner trucks with plows and sanders on them for service drives and small parking lots that are not serviced by the Parking and Transportation Department
  • They have seven utility vehicles with sanding units on them to follow up behind the nine Skid Steers and two Toro track machines.
  • 16 Landscape Services staff members handle the snow shoveling responsibilities for the more than 80 building entries, and the crew works with 11 people from other shops who assist them for the first three hours of the day until they have to report to their regular jobs and starting times.

At the Oakdale campus:

  • Landscape Services is also responsible for snow removal on the roads not done by the City of Coralville.