The largest roads and highways are the first to be cleared; roads with steep hills or other dangers are also often a priority. Streets used by buses and other mass transit are also often given higher priorities. It often takes many hours, or even days, to cover every street in a city. In some places, a snow emergency will be declared, where automobile owners are instructed to remove their vehicles from the street (or one side of a street). If cars are in the way when the plows come around, they may be hauled away by tow trucks. Some communities have standing snow emergency rules in winter, in which vehicles may not be parked on streets overnight, whether it snows or not. After smaller snow storms only main roads are cleared while residential ones are left to be melted by passing traffic. Decisions on immediate removal versus "natural melting" can be hard to make because the inconvenience to citizens and the economy in general must be weighed against the immediate effect on the snow removal budget at that particular moment in the season.
