Image credit: Cujo359Ever helpful, yesterday the city of Federal Way sent a plow through our neighborhood. It made a single pass, leaving a big pile of snow in the center of the street and several inches of slush in the road. Thanks to his efforts, cars were sliding up and down the street the rest of the evening. I wonder which city councilman's idiot nephew was at the controls of that one.
Not being one to miss a chance to make lemonade when someone leaves a pile of lemons in the street, I took some of the middling size snow balls the plow left and stacked them to make a snow sculpture. In honor of our recent alliance, I call it Bear and Puppy.
It could be worse, at least according to Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I could be living in Seattle:
I drove with a friend down to Kent early Saturday afternoon after the first substantial snowfall and just before the big one. It was slow, rutty and snowy all the way down Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. In Kent, however, not only the West Valley Highway, but secondary arterials were snow free as well.
"When you get out of Seattle, you can drive again," said my friend, who lives in Bothell.
...
Are we maybe too mellow and accommodating in the Emerald City? The political class keeps coming at us with pricey bond issues. With voters going along, property taxes have been hiked, a parking tax imposed, sales tax repeatedly increased, and a plastic bag fee in the offing.
It's Time To Get Angry About City's Response To Snow
The short answer is, hell, yes you're too mellow. There's been enough wasted money and nonsensical projects in Seattle to build a city with just since I've lived in the region. I'm increasingly glad I don't live there. Federal Way is bad enough.
If you're celebrating Christmas, have a good one. If you're celebrating something else, enjoy that. Or just have a good day, whichever applies.
2 comments:
Today I drive my car for the first time since last Saturday. Carpooling with a friend to last night's Christmas dinner was a scary, snowy, spin-out version of Mr. Toad's wild ride. Anyone who says that Seattle's main and secondary arterials have been properly plowed, if plowed at all, is LYING. (Yes, I mean YOU, Mayor Nickels.)
The city government is an amalgam of inept, incompetent, excuse-making dunderheads.
But... it wouldn't be politically/environmentally correct to ask that the DOT salts the roads once or twice a winter every ten years.
I wasn't all that fond of the surly Bostonians when I lived in that historic town, but at least they know how to clear the roads during snowy winters.
Hopefully, the Federal Way snow plow uses a metal blade. Our Seattle plows use *environmentally correct* and woefully deficient rubber flaps.
So glad it is raining again -- and I never thought I would say that!
I hate salt, and would just as soon they never used it. If they start using it, they'll keep on using it, because it's cheaper than buying more snowplows. One of the most remarkable differences between this and the other coast is that out here, old cars don't look like they're rotting away. They do back east.
Even so, they could do much better than they have. Having snowplows helps. King County only has fifty - and several cities contract with KC for snow removal services. Clearing the snow before it turned into ice would make the roads a lot more passable here. Decent plows that can be put on full-size pickups and dump trucks can't be as expensive as these days of being unable to get around have been.
Having designated snow/ice routes would help. So would encouraging people to stock up on things like shovels and all-weather tires.
Hell, having a plan would help.
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