Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Where Is The Outrage

I'm with Joel Connelly—this is the seventh day that most of Seattle has been effectively snowed in; given the forecast for highs in the mid-30s until Friday, we will probably see days eight and nine. Here's the list of suspended and rerouted buses. In effect, large parts of the city has no bus service, in a town where most people have very little practice driving in the snow, as demonstrated by the number of people who try to drive up a very steep hill next to our house. Now, in the city's defense, we don't get weather this bad this often, and Seattle has more side streets and hills to clear than most of the suburbs, but this is insane. Salting the roads once or twice ever few years is not going to destroy your car; the city should really look at what the environmental impact of occasional salting really is, or consider other methods of street-clearing (Portland has twice as many snow plows as Seattle? Do they get that much more snow?).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in Chicago where we understandably use salt...often...very often and I would like to know the environmental consequences of doing so.

Anonymous said...

The Salt Institute answers all. Yes, there's a Salt Institute. (Okay, that's pretty old. But it seems like the environmental impact is non-negligible. And sand is supposed to be much, much worse. So quit your whining, Mr. Emerald City.)

BruceMcF said...

Don't they make snow tires for buses? It would seem that with some rerouting and some better bus traction, sets of snow tires would be cheaper than a lot of snow plows that won't see much use in a normal year.

Or else the flip in the weather system over the North Pole that is causing rapid polar ice melting is permanent, and its time for Seattle to get isself some snow plows.

Nick Beaudrot said...

The city is sufficiently hilly that the buses can't really take it, even with snow tires.

That's awesome that there is a salt institute. Well, that stinks. I'll have to read up on it.