The Department Of Unintelligent Design
Seattle’s chief of staff of the Department of Transportation, one Alex Wiggins, cheerfully reports on his department’s inability to provide basic safety for the taxpayers of his city. It seems that letting salt run off into salt water is a bigger issue than police who can’t navigate the snow-packed streets. The snow-packing is “by design.”
To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
“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.”
The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”
The immediate upshot of this policy is that the local police cannot drive their vehicles on the snow-packed streets on hills in Seattle. The long term stupidity of this policy is that experts say the sand the irresponsible Department of Transportation is using is actually much, much worse for the environment than the salt they are sanctimoniously avoiding using.
I have lived all of my life in areas where snow is a physical force that must be dealt with with every tool in the arsenal. Sand is virtually useless for creating passable roads. Salt and other deicers as well as vigorous plowing (which Seattle also avoids, opting for rubber blade edges that cannot remove ice) are all required in the interest of public safety.
The Seattle Department of Transportation has decided that its taxpayer’s safety is less important than their “green” bona fides.
Via Memeorandum
Ed Morrisey, also a veteran of snowy living, points out another statistic about Seattle’s choices: there have been numerous – to the point of the ridiculous – automobile accidents:
“Sunday was full of car crashes, even after several pleas from State Patrol and local police to stay off the roads.
The State Patrol responded to 157 collisions Sunday in King County. …
Between noon and midnight on Saturday, the State Patrol responded to 246 collisions … in King County.”
You know, if I happened to be hurt in an accident directly attributable to the decision of Seattle that green credentials were more important than the red of a taxpayer’s blood, I might be pushed in the direction of seeking redress. If you get my drift. A few well-placed lawsuits might make Seattle rethink their sanctimonious decisions.
UPDATE: Best snarky blog post title goes to Secrets of Vancouver with their Saltless In Seattle post. (I hate you guys – that was genius). The best part is the very, very telling photos of the consequences of the decision of the Seattle authorities. The photos speak for themselves about just how unintelligent Seattle has been here – and how close it was to a real disaster.
Bad Ideas, Environment | Gaius December 23, 2008
By John in Dublin California, December 23, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
What will it take for these people to recognize the idiocy of their actions? Are they so self hypnotized that they believe the mixing of salt water with salt water will in anyway effect Puget Sound? And to think, they are actually proud of themselves for this lunacy. Someday, hopefully soon, reality is going to smack them so hard in the face that they will no longer be able to deny what they are doing. And the people of Seattle keep electing these jerks. They have what they deserve.
By pst314, December 23, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
“Sunday was full of car crashes”
Maybe Seattle is doing its part for the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.
By curtis kreutzberg, December 23, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
Why can’t those worthless hippy trustfunders take salt out of the Puget sound to salt the roads? Ghia would be pleased.
By batman, December 23, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
Moonbattery endemic.
Voluntary human extinction movement. Precisely!
The educational system takeover is obviously complete in Seattle. Their work is done. The chickens, they’re coming home, to roost!
By feeblemind, December 24, 2008 @ 7:55 am
Tangentially related article over at Drudge: Headline, Scientists warn Christmas lights bad for the planet.
By Bleepless, December 24, 2008 @ 11:49 am
John in Dublin, you are absolutely right. The Seattle ruling clique, led by Hizzoner, is just that bad — on its good days.
Amusingly, both Seattle newspapers had front-page pieces today about the environmental damage from sand. Also, nobody has come up with one word about how much salt actually gets into the water or what damage it might actually do. Just the usual enviro panic.
Parenthetically, I speculated about why no reporters have interviewed Gore about the current weather. Some guy said that Gore probably throws snowballs at them. Heh heh.