NEW YORK CITY — Clearing New York City streets of snow costs an average of $1.8 million per inch, according to a new analysis released Thursday by the city comptroller.
"Consider the old adage of $1 million per inch debunked," New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said in a press release.
According to these numbers, this week's snowstorm, with an average of 8 inches of snow as of Tuesday morning, cost the city a little less than $14.5 million.
The costs include overtime, wages for hourly workers, fuel, maintenance and training.
Officials said they did not have a final total cost for this week's storm as the cleanup is still happening, but a spokeswoman for the mayor's office said this week's cleanup will represent a relatively modest portion of the overall 2015 snow budget of $60.29 million.
The study, which analyzed the city's snow removal budgets since 2003, also found that clearing snow is significantly more expensive per inch when there's little snow that season or if there's heavy snow totals.
Snow-related costs per inch tend to rise when the season-long snowfall is less than 13 inches, mainly because of the high fixed costs, such as deploying snowplows, the study found.
In 2012, it snowed just 6.8 inches all winter, putting the snow-removal cost at $4.4 million per inch, the study found.
Similarly, costs also tend to increase if more than roughly 43 inches of snow accumulate over the course of the season, mainly because it often means the city must pay overtime and buy more snow-removal supplies like salt.
In 2014, there were 56.3 inches of snow, costing $2.3 million per inch.
