YOUNGSTOWN — After years of working with old snow-plow trucks that regularly break down, the city’s street department will add two new ones by Jan. 1 to go along with the three it’s received in the past 11 months.

These five are the first new snow-plow trucks for the city since 2008.

“The administration is investing in the department after neglect for so many years,” said Kevin Flinn, buildings and grounds commissioner, who oversees the street department.

He added: “This is a step in the right direction. But this isn’t a silver bullet to fix complaints of not getting every street done because new trucks break down, too. However, they will be much more reliable than the trucks in our fleet that are 21 years old.”

The two new trucks are prebuilt demonstration models, just like one that the city had delivered in December 2019.

One of the new trucks costs $152,900 and is coming from FYDA Freightliner Youngstown Co., a Youngstown company.

The other cost $192,281.01 with the $105,000 truck and chassis coming from R.W. Sidley Inc of Thompson and the dump bed, plow and a special liquid sprayer coming from Concord Road Equipment Manufacturing Inc. of Painesville.

The latter truck costs more because of the liquid sprayer that will apply brine to salt while it is driving with plans to use it first on the Himrod and Madison avenues expressways, Flinn said.

“Our game plan is those expressways first,” he said. “That’s the priority so we can pretreat overpasses before they ice. But it will be used elsewhere.”

Flinn is planning to have the city purchase two more snow-plow trucks in late 2021 for the department.

“We are constantly trying to keep roads open during snowstorms,” Kyle Miasek, interim finance director, said. “We’re making an investment with this fleet. If we don’t, it’s going to be a problem to clear our roads.”

Councilwoman Basia Adamczak, D-7th Ward, said she was pleased the street department’s “fleet and equipment is able to grow so that we can serve our residents.”

While the city received a prebuilt demonstration model in December 2019 after ordering it a month earlier, the two other new trucks that arrived in March of this year were ordered in May 2018. City officials said they had no idea the trucks would take that long to be ready.

The chassis arrived in October 2018, but all of the parts didn’t show up until February of this year as they were on back order.

Because of the delays with those two trucks, the city decided to only purchase snow-plow trucks that are already prebuilt, Flinn said.

Before these purchases, the city last bought snow-plow trucks in 2008. Those five are still in service as are 10 others, which include trucks purchased in 1999.

During a November 2019 ice storm, seven of the 15 trucks the city had at the time broke down.

The normal life expectancy for these trucks is eight to 10 years while some the city is using are 21 years old, Flinn said.

“It speaks volumes to our mechanic shop that these trucks are still on the road,” Flinn said. “Suppliers are surprised we’ve been able to keep them on the road.”

Even the old trucks are staying in the street department’s fleet, he said.

During snowstorms or icestorms, the street department has 13 drivers on 12-hour shifts, who are then relieved by 13 other drivers also on 12-hour shifts with that continuing until the streets are cleared, he said.

“But we can’t run the same trucks around the clock so we need to switch them,” Flinn said. “That’s why we need to have more trucks.”

dskolnick@tribtoday.com