skillz

But that van wasn't parked, it was abandoned without wheels.

There are a few cars with tires that can't be towed conventionally and have to be lifted like that because of all wheel drive.

Yes I can understand that but if you're lifting it up totally off the ground then surely there is no reason to remove the wheels.
Or what am I missing?

It does take skill to do that!

Your first assessment was correct, it was an abandoned vehicle in the video, my comment should have included the word ALSO, in other words ... there are ALSO cars with tires that have to be moved in that manner.

The destination is a surrounding street in a legal spot, they have to move quick, with some streets they may have to move 50 cars.

They are not impounding cars, they are just relocating them out of the way of our operation, so for 99.8% of the time a flatbed would take way too much time so there isn't one on the job.

FWIW, we do post no parking signs a few days ahead of the operation with the dates and hours noted.

If you were in NY City, you would just pave overtop them.

One year specifically attending the Norwegian Parade in Brooklyn. It was pretty fascinating to see how quickly they cleared out 4th Ave. I don't think they were too concerned with parking brakes, drive transaxles, and things of that sort. There was one driver I swear barely 4'10" and she was getting er did. Also remember a woman moving a police barricade out of the way, and driving on, with NYPD patrolmen laughing.

p.s. I have seen these milled roads in W Phila. Just because they are milled doesn't mean there is going to be any paving.

My company/I probably milled the roads you speak of.

It's a three stage process, mill the road, then a crew comes along and levels any boxes (manholes, water company access covers, etc) and storm inlets that need it, then the road gets paved.

We do the first two stages on city roads and the city has their own paving crew that handles the paving.

We do all three stages for any state maintained roads.

If the road was milled as part of a road repair project, which is what we do, it will be paved, but the 3 stages can take a few weeks to a month to complete.

Sometimes roads are slightly milled to level a road where trucks created groves or slightly milled to create rain groves for better vehicle traction, we do not do that type of milling.

The roads in W. Philly will be paved, other than what I mentioned here there may be a delay if there is another construction project in the way and the road would be paved after that is completed.

I have seen the three-stage process in my area many times. Normally they get all three stages done within a few days, but a few years ago a major street near my house had the first two stages done quickly, and then the surface was not touched for about two months.

I was quite pleased when they finally did repave it . . .

- Tom -

Here in Philly we might do 100 streets during the course of a few months, it takes a day to mill about 5 streets, depending on how many blocks and the width of the streets. In the city there are tons of "boxes", the manholes, inlets and many other items buried in the street. The box crew only closes one side of a street a day, does what they do then does the other the next day. It might take the box crew a week or two to do what the mill does in a day, as a result they get pretty far behind. The paving depends on who is doing it, if it's the city, well they take a while, my company can pave in one day what the city would take 3 to do.

There's also a few other variables, while most streets can be milled and have the box crew through in the daytime, some streets required nightwork to be paved, during times when less traffic would be affected. That takes time to set up.

All three phases require vehicles that are in the way to be moved.

There may also be other things like other utility work to be done before final paving.