Why Seattle is still shut down.
"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."
Uh, yeah, Chicago and New York actually keep functioning when snow falls.
I've been willing to cut Seattle a lot of slack on the snow and ice issue over the years. We see such small, infrequent snowfalls around here it's understandable that they don't have the stores of snow removal equipment and supplies that real cold-weather cities have. I'm sympathetic the the difficulties presented by Seattle's numerous, dramatically steep hills. But when your "plan" for snow is to "create a [slippery-as-hell, totally unsafe for man or machine] hard-packed surface" on purpose on those occasions when we do have significant cold and snow... I have to call that plan one of the stupidest things I've ever heard! STUPID.
How many businesses, already struggling due to the economy, are seeing their desperate Christmas retail hopes dashed because people and goods can't move where they need to go? How many workers have had to literally risk their lives trying to get to work because they can't afford to go without pay or work for companies that don't offer anything in the way of paid compensation for "sick" days/snow days/acts of nature? How many people have been injured as a result of these icy roads? What's been the toll in property damage? Of course, the brunt of this policy is borne by the individual citizens of Seattle and not the City itself.
Sorry Seattle, you know I love you but this is screwed up.
Uh, yeah, Chicago and New York actually keep functioning when snow falls.
I've been willing to cut Seattle a lot of slack on the snow and ice issue over the years. We see such small, infrequent snowfalls around here it's understandable that they don't have the stores of snow removal equipment and supplies that real cold-weather cities have. I'm sympathetic the the difficulties presented by Seattle's numerous, dramatically steep hills. But when your "plan" for snow is to "create a [slippery-as-hell, totally unsafe for man or machine] hard-packed surface" on purpose on those occasions when we do have significant cold and snow... I have to call that plan one of the stupidest things I've ever heard! STUPID.
How many businesses, already struggling due to the economy, are seeing their desperate Christmas retail hopes dashed because people and goods can't move where they need to go? How many workers have had to literally risk their lives trying to get to work because they can't afford to go without pay or work for companies that don't offer anything in the way of paid compensation for "sick" days/snow days/acts of nature? How many people have been injured as a result of these icy roads? What's been the toll in property damage? Of course, the brunt of this policy is borne by the individual citizens of Seattle and not the City itself.
Sorry Seattle, you know I love you but this is screwed up.
Labels: snow, snowpocalypse, stupidity
I think this is the sort of thing they do in Saskatoon or places like that: build a hard-packed substrate and then plough everything above, say, 6 inches deep. But I imagine Saskatoon and the like are a bit flatter than Seattle, the drivers have snow tires or chains, etc.
Spike