Portland gets its Plowy McPlowface (and four other winning snowplow names)

Fear not—at least when it comes to snowplow voting, democracy is still very much alive and flourishing.

In its first Snowplow Naming Contest, the Portland Bureau of Transportation received ranked-choice votes from nearly 16,000 voters. On Monday, the winners were revealed.

The recently renamed snowploughs in the city are:

• 
  
  The Big Leplowski
  
  , submitted by Bryson Helble
  
• 
  
  Beverly Clear-y
  
  , submitted by Elizabeth Mara
  
• 
  
  Brrrrnside
  
  , submitted by Sherri P.
  
• 
  
  Salt and Thaw
  
  , submitted by Arpita K.
  
• 
  And, of course,
  
  Plowy McPlowface
  
  , an anonymous submission.
  

Out of almost 4,000 entries, the city’s transportation department got over 3,000 distinct snowplow names. For the public vote last month, the department reduced the list to 20 names, most of which were from Portland.

Although numerous people submitted some of the winning names, PBOT is honoring the first person to submit each name.

Later this year, PBOT said, the names would be affixed to the snowplows.

There are 56 snowploughs in the city of Portland. Although that may seem like a lot, the snowplows are used for routine maintenance for the majority of the year. The city equips the vehicles with sand/salt spreaders and snowplows during bad winter weather.

Given the likelihood of snow in the forecast, those snow plows might be on the road as early as this week.

When that occurs, an interactive map shows you where the city’s snowploughs are located in real time.

Here is Oregon and The Oregonian/OregonLive are covered by Samantha Swindler. You may reach her at oregonian.com/sswindler.

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