That's a good question! Because the city isn't keeping up on their duties to maintain the streets.

The hydrant in question

I think the city must contract out snow plowing for big snows. Otherwise, what would all the snow plow drivers be doing the rest of the year?

The city owns plow trucks. They hire drivers to drive their plows.

The plow in question here cleared a private drive then pushed snow from the street adjacent to the driveway (for off street parking) in front of the hydrant. When I left for work this evening at 5PM it was still there, and Lenox street was still not plowed to clean up the sides of the road. I had to take Lexington, which was in no better shape than Lenox.

snow melted