I’ve been out of town with family since Friday, so I’ve missed the snow insanity enveloping the Pacific Northwest. But I have to say, I’m in agreement with Geov @ Horse’s Ass. From my perspective, the response to the snowstorm is an embarrassment to the city and an indictment of our leaders.
Providing emergency response services is priority one. Getting the transit system up and running should be priority two.
Greg Nickels is the Ray Nagin of the North. Ron Sims is our Kathleen Blanco. Let’s get it together, folks.
I’m not convinced it’s as bad as people make it sound. All of the arterials have been plowed (probably including Geov’s) since Friday morning. The reason the streets don’t look plowed is that we have rubber-bottomed snowplows that avoid damage to our roads, reflectors, and manholes but leave about an inch of snow/ice on the ground.
Has the city/county messed up? Clearly. And take a look at my previous post as to what I think they should have done. But I doubt people drive around on Boston hills after 9″ of snowfall in 2-wheel drive cars, which is apparently what Seattlites demand.
Heh. Check this out.
I don’t think people really understand the costs involved in a lot of extra unused capacity.
Say, for example, you had 50 extra snowplows that you only used once in five years. One way to do this would be to have a yard with 50 plow units, and 50 dump trucks strengthened and with fittings to take the plow units. Now all you need to do is have a drill every year where you attach the plows, fill the dump trucks with sand or something to give them weight, and you’ll be “ready” to go.
Of course, you will also need to be watching so that when one of your special dump trucks gets old and sold, you replace it with another, and of course the staffing rosters need to be kept current, and, not to disturb some critical function by pulling the dump for snowplow use, of course, and making sure your 50 extra drivers are trained and know what and how to plow.
All of this effort is going into trucks and tools you’ll only use once in five years for a few days.
But you can imagine the airlines won’t keep a few hundred extra people on the roster for that once-in-five-years storm. The bus companies won’t have food and shelter ready for bus passengers stuck in Seattle when the passes are closed. In short, all of this once-in-five-years effort will be loaded on the back of government.
To me, this is just nuts. Considering how bad the weather has been around here, I think Mason County has been doing ok so far. Of course, you don’t move here if you’re big on the instant gratification thing.
And furthermore (had to go shovel snow while it wasn’t snowing)…
Why aren’t all these people who are so eager to get around prepared with their own ten-year storm transportation devices? Really, if it’s that cheap to keep a bunch of unnecessary capacity around, how come they don’t have 4WD, studded tires, and chains? Why aren’t their schedules padded to let them chain up, and drive or walk where they want to go? Why haven’t they established a base camp close to their important business?
I’ll admit that after a lifetime of hearing people whine about how the “government” screwed up, I’m just sick of it. After all, one person on Wall Street has just admitted to destroying $50 billion of other peoples money. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s enough to build a thousand South Lake Union Streetcars. So what are you telling me- that you want government to be as efficient as Wall Street? That you want the kind of on-time delivery you get from GM?
Frankly, I think Seattle and King County are damn lucky to have the leadership they do, considering the number of insults that get hurled by people who absolutely no intention of actually doing the work themselves. Somehow Sims and Nickels kept the expenses and taxes low enough, and the government clean enough, that the voters approved an extension of LINK by 60%. Do you think that would have happened with taxes twice as high and an endless stream of newspaper stories about corruption in the stockpiles for the “storm that never happens”?
And Frank, let me put this as gently as I can- what exactly is your perspective? Because, from your post, it appears to be that of a person who isn’t even here.
Me, I’m sitting here in a sort of shock at just how much snow has fallen, and I’ve been through some snowstorms. For personal reasons I’m probably more disturbed than any of you about being stuck here. But that doesn’t make this a failure of government. It remains some extremely unusual weather, nothing more, and nothing less.
You don’t have to be gentle with me, SC, I noted right in the first sentence that my perspective was that of someone witnessing these events from afar. I don’t have the first hand knowledge of what it’s like “on the ground” as they say. But neither do you, right?
Anyway, if you go back over my writings on the internets, you’ll see that I’ve been more than fair to our elected officials over the years. I’m usually willing to give them — yes, even the Bush administration — the benefit of the doubt at times. Governing is hard work. I get that.
Still, those of us — like myself — who favor a strong, activist government do ourselves no favors by becoming apologists. We have to be honest with ourselves and with our leaders.
Seattle businesses have lost tens of millions of dollars in productivity over the last week. We’re lucky, in a sense, that this is Christmas week and everyone’s half checked out anyway. Otherwise the economic loss would be even worse.
I think the title of the post “Nagin of the North” is preposterous, and damages your own credibility. There were no lives lost, no property damage, and no proof of clear negligence.
Moreover, I live in Redmond, on one of the major boulevards, two blocks from city hall, and the streets here are at least as bad as Seattle…but I don’t hear anyone calling for Marchione’s head.
We do have a clear problem, but it’s one that can be easily rectified. Heated switches on our rail lines will go a long way towards ensuring the past week’s experience never happens again. Link light rail to the airport will be open next year; when combined with our two robust commuter lines, and even the budding streetcar system, this will ensure transportation service to most of the region. If we “weatherize” BNSF down to Portland, this will give travelers at Sea-Tac and Rose the ability to switch airports in case either one is impacted by the storm.
Beyond that, I think we should actually plow our streets instead of packing them….and look into the new street-coating formula the state is using, which relies on saltwater as opposed to salt.
Regardless of your comments, Nickles has been a great mayor, showing real leadership on moving Sound Transit forward, going to bat for the streets and transit option on the waterfront, and trying to bring families back to the city.
If we were to depose such leadership because of a lackluster response to an unusual snow event, we really would be fools.
Perhaps. The post title was intentionally inflammatory. But I don’t think we should shy away from comparisons. “Comparing” two things or people is not the same as “equating” them.
For example, I fervently believe that the Bush Administration has, from time to time, engaged in certain tactics that are reminiscent of the Third Reich. But just because I make that comparison doesn’t mean that I’m accusing Bush of having killed millions of people, right?
No, I wasn’t in Seattle for this snowstorm. But I was in Seattle for a few other snowstorms. One thing I remember is driving a 63 Plymouth Valiant, with regular tread and not too much of that, up a hill and realizing I was passing a bunch of Volvos who were spinning their wheels. Go figure.
Sure, let’s hold them accountable. Accounting starts with an audit so we can figure out what happened. So far all I’ve seen are anecdotes, and the plural of anecdote is not data. (I know, but what else can we say at this point?)
I’m not too impressed by all that lost productivity. I’ve seen too much stuff in my lifetime that would have saved us all money if it had never been done. Then, of course, the GDP remains the GDP, whether you spend the money plowing snow or building airplanes. But the GDP doesn’t fairly state non-monetary values, like kids playing in the snow. If we actually knew what was good for us, the snow days might prove to be an economic bonanza.
In the absence of actual figures, hypotheticals become even more hypothetical. But let’s imagine, for a minute, that 30% of the people got to work. Now, for the next big snow storm, let’s have big reserves that make it possible to double the number of people who get to work. Now 60% of the people get to work.
Do you think, in that case, the remaining 40% would say a great job had been done? More probably, they would be outraged that almost everyone other than them had gotten to work. And that would be fair enough, because instead of widespread closures when 70% of the people can’t make it in, businesses would be open and workers who didn’t make it in would be chided for lateness or absenteeism.
Assemble some data into audits. Were there fewer plows this year than last? Was there more snow? Until I know the answers to questions like these, the complaints about “politicians” and “bureaucracy” remain the entirely predictable audio accompaniment to any event in American life.
Even those people consider experts at snow removal are having problems in this storm. I was listening to a podcast of KSL in Salt Lake City, and the reporter was talking to a UDOT spokesperson, and he was saying how many plow drivers he had for Salt Lake City. A whopping 10 full time drivers and 4 relief drivers he was borrowing from other agencies. I can see why they were probably a little short. Probably have to keep I-80 open in mountainous areas. Even CalTrans was failing to keep Donner Summit open at times on Christmas Day, and usually they do a good job of keeping Donner open in any kind of weather.
http://www.mercurynews.com/travel/ci_11315015
Now for SOUND TRANSIT and the SOUTH LAKE UNION STREETCAR, I would like to see some kind of plow blade attatchment be put on the vehicles for snow clearance. Also, hire landscaper trucks to clear the side streets, freeing up more of SDOT’s trucks to do the main streets. Also, not being reported, is the Seattle Public Utilities crews that are on the streets. I have seen City Light trucks on the road, as well as Water department vac trucks, probably clearing storm drains so they do not get clogged.
Did you post with a title of “Bush: American Hitler”?
Nope, but that’s a good suggestion, thanks!