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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Some ideas for improving snow response

As the snow and ice slowly melt out of sight across central Puget Sound, newspaper op-ed pages and online message boards continue to be filled with complaints from King County and particularly Seattle residents who aren't happy with the municipal response to the series of storms we've just had.

Summarizing our sentiments in his column last Wednesday, Joel Connelly wrote:
Seattle mayors have been telling us for 40 years that neighborhoods are the city's lifeblood. Madrona has been full of life in the deep freeze. The snow has been shoveled, at least on our block. People are making their way about on cross-country skis. Parents are towing little kids, the enchanted and the uncomfortable, around in sleds.

It's just that, after a time, folks want to be able to get out. As I talk to friends around the city, there are other 34th avenues in the Emerald City that are also choked by snow.
Most people seem to be coping with the snow as cheerfully as they can. The garbage may be piling up, those gifts for family members may still be undelivered by UPS and USPS, and the power flickering from time to time, but we can deal with annoyances.

That said, when the pantry's almost depleted, folks want to be able to get to the grocery store to buy some food. Is it too much to ask that our major roads be cleared within half a day of the end of a snowstorm?

It shouldn't be.

People who can't telecommute or take time off from work need to be able to get to their jobs. Commuters and travelers don't want to be stuck for hours waiting in the cold for buses that don't materialize.

Without further griping, here are some ideas for city and county leaders to think about - possibilites that could improve our response to snow and ice storms.
  1. Put snow plows on garbage/recycling trucks and buses. This would greatly increase the size of our snowplow fleet and help get our roads cleared faster. Metro, Rabanco, and Waste Management could put their drivers through a training course on how to operate their vehicles with snow plows attached. In the spots where plows aren't needed - or plowing would only leave behind ice - they could simply be raised into the air.
  2. Don't use articulated buses. This suggestion has already been made by several commentators. Vehicles that are prone to jacknifing on ice shouldn't be on the road in or after a snowstorm, period.
  3. Improve city/county coordination. From reports we've heard, many of our county's more rural communities did a decent job of getting key arterials cleared, while more urban cities - like Seattle - didn't. Eastern King County includes plenty of mountainous Cascade terrain. Surely there are people working in county government who know how to effectively clear snow. Get those people to train SDOT's employees as soon as possible.
  4. Post countywide snow response plans. All city Public Works Departments in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties should submit a snow response plan to the county DOT. A map should be posted on the Web and mailed out to residents that shows which arterials are likely to be passable first, which are prone to closure, and which municipality is responsible for the plowing.
  5. Use mobile alerts to inform people of road closures and snow routes. Conditions can change quickly when a storm system is moving in. King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties (and all the cities within) need to expand RPIN and create a more personalized mobile alert system that alerts subscribers when there is a road closure or bus rerouting that affects them. Subscribers should be asked when they sign up to type in the names of the roads or numbers of transit routes they used on their regular commute. This way, accurate information could be distributed speedily and effectively.
  6. Urge property owners to shovel their sidewalks. We've heard recent pleas from municipal spokespeople on TV asking people to clean nearby storm drains and gutters to prevent flooding, but not so many reminders about shoveling sidewalks and driveways. Snow response doesn't just fall upon government, it's a job for all of us.
  7. Redesign Metro's website. It should be possible for anyone who is looking at King County Metro's website to see the emergency status of any route not operating normally without having to hunt around for that information. The current website is outdated and needs to be replaced with a better designed one.
We'd add to that list the construction of a light rail network, but we're already building one. Sound Transit's Central Link route opens next year, with University Link, North Link, South Link, and East Link to follow.

Having light rail will be helpful during future storms, because trains are much more durable and reliable than buses.

Of course, heavy snowfall can and does stop trains - the Arctic blast we've had has disrupted Amtrak service (and Sounder to a lesser extent) - but trains are more rugged than buses, and less likely to be out of commission in bad weather.

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