JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 10, 2010
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"I realize there are lots of problems that cannot be solved just by throwing money at them," writes Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein, "but snow removal is not one of them. We have the know-how, we have the technology and we have the money and economic self-interest to do it right."
I'm not certain this is true. Oh, sure, at the extreme, we could spend a lot of money and clear out all the snow. But, as I watch my home and everything that surrounds it disappear under a white mountain, I'm wondering if this problem can be realistically solved by anything short of warm weather.
In my neighborhood, like much of Washington, people park along the street. When it snows, plows go down and shove the snow away from the middle of the street and toward the sides. When it snows large amounts, the plows create massive snow barriers between the cars and the street. Digging out one's car becomes a huge task. You have to scoop all the snow off the car itself, around the perimeter of the car, and this is just a tiny warm-up to the major task, when you have to breach the snow wall so that your car can get out to the street. This is even harder than it sounds. Every shovelful has to be carried back form the middle of the street and deposited on the front lawn.
Before the latest snowfall, the barriers in my street stood at around three or four feet. When the plow comes, they're just going to get bigger. The nearly-intractable problem here is that there's simply no place to put the snow. All the spare space along the side of the street is taken up by parked cars. The snow has nowhere to go.
One part of the solution is to truck the snow away to a remote location. Washington is already beginning to do this. With enough money to hire enough trucks and equipment, the government could probably remove all the snow. But this is a massive project that would take an unthinkable commitment to finish. I'm wondering if I'll see my office again until spring, or spring-like weather.
17 comments
O come on, Jon...at the salary I'm sure you journos get paid at TNR, the very least you could do is install a heated driveway at your place. That would solve the problem, no?
- rlgordonma
February 10, 2010 at 5:23pm
I thought Washington has this great subway system with tentacles throughout the city. Do people use it?
- amidut
February 10, 2010 at 6:11pm
As a native Minnesotan whose rich school district could afford its own plows instead of relying on county snow removal and therefore never had even a single snow day, not even in the worst blizzards of '82 or '83 or '91 when the entire rest of the state missed school, I can testify that yes, given sufficient resources, any amount of snow can swiftly be cleared. There is no such thing as "no place to put the snow." There is only a willingness, or not, to buy the equipment to build 60-foot snow mountains in fields and vacant lots. So yes, you can solve the snow problem by throwing money at it, assuming you do the money-throwing far in advance of the snow season. But why bother? This isn't Duluth or Buffalo. The resources necessary to deal with the one really snowy winter we get every decade or so would be wasted the rest of the time. If the worse X in recorded history doesn't overwhelm local government's ability to respond, then local government has its priorities wrong.
- rhubarbs
February 10, 2010 at 6:17pm
oh boo hoo. You don't hear people in the snowbelt whine like this. Washingtonians are such wimps. As for me, I got my problems too, I spent a little too much time at Playa Chipehua during my lunch break and got a little sunburn on the back of my neck, and when I came back to my office and lied on my couch I had a restless siesta due to the slight discomfort.
- blackton
February 10, 2010 at 6:22pm
Oh fiddlesticks, you know you love all that beautiful snow.
- jhildner1
February 10, 2010 at 6:22pm
Very disappointed in you, Jon. Leaving Michigan clearly made you soft.
- Jonathan Cohn
February 10, 2010 at 6:25pm
When I moved from Colorado to live and work in the NOVA/DC metro area several years back, I always wondered why DC couldn't handle snow. It's not like snow was a supremely rare event there. Three feet notwithstanding. Then I began to notice that there were school delays for fog, Federal shutdowns for ice and sleet storms, and people would rush the stores to stock up on bottled water and toilet paper at the first hint of a snow storm in neighboring West Virginia. It wouldn't matter how effective the snow removal could be, it would still be ineffective in the NOVA/DC area because they don't know how to drive in snow, let alone rain. The few existing snow plow drivers that do exist can't drive in the snow because I've watched them on less challenging storms than what you have now. While I'm a bit jealous of missing all that snow in my new home town, I don't miss the inept, inclement weather driving skills of the NOVA/DC area.
- singlspeed
February 10, 2010 at 6:35pm
I have to agree with you, jonathon. Digging out a path, especially with storms of this magnitude, after the snow plows move through is by far the most labor intensive of the whole ordeal. I shoveled out a path last saturday evening, and when i awoke the next morning, there was an over 3 foot mountain of compacted snow and ice blocking the end of my driveway. Fortunately, i was able to get through it with my sledge hammer, pick-axe and snow shovel. After that, i cleared out a path for the people that lives across the way...they're an elderly couple who depends on the enterprising folks who attach snow plows to their trucks to make some extra money. Incidently, the great brown bomber (AKA joe louis) had as part of his regimen in training camp the occasional trip to the scrap mill to whale away on sheets of metal with a sledge hammer. He felt it increased his upper body strength.
- wldctfan142
February 10, 2010 at 6:49pm
Steven Perlstein has evidently not seen the 1970 classic disaster melodrama Airport, in which this very issue is thoroughly dealt with. Dean Martin, a pilot, is pissed at his borther-in-law Burt Lancaster, the general manager of the Chicago airport, for inadequate snow clearance. "Anchorage had twice as much, and they're clean," Martin argues. To which Lancaster responds, "This isn't Alaska. You don't spend thousands of dollars on equipment you might use once in ten years. You plan for the average snowfall. And when disaster hits, you use what you've got and you work around the clock." Martin: "Sitting behind that desk has made you think like a penguin." Lancaster: "I didn't always fly a desk." Martin: "Well, alright daddy, you tell me all about how you when you were a war hero. You flew those pursuit jobs you could land in a parking lot. When I'm flying over 300,000 pounds of 707, I want something under my wheels that's plenty long, and mighty dry." At this point in the movie, Lancaster is the good guy, so I agree with him. Oh, Airport. Is there any contemporary problem, from snow to abortion, that you can't answer?
- jhildner1
February 10, 2010 at 6:56pm
The problem with Snow Removal has more to do with who owns the road rather than just spending money. Most nieghborhood roads like Mr. Chait's are owned and maintained by the city, perhaps D.C. Georgetown for our esteemed collegue? And the city really can't spend whatever it takes to solve this problem. They can barely keep the schools open and Police on the street. And because this is a District, it may not have the resources at the State Level to keep the state roads salted and free of snow. Perhaps we could get Stimulus money to help with this problem. The Freds are always sympathetic to people that don't want to get out of the house and go to work.
- CRS9TNR
February 10, 2010 at 7:14pm
That great classic black christmas (mid 1970's) comes to mind in that if you're snowed in, check the attic and don't answer the phone.
- wldctfan142
February 10, 2010 at 7:16pm
I also heard a report that up to 25% of DC's snow plows are down. Not sure if its true or not.
- wldctfan142
February 10, 2010 at 7:17pm
Insert condescending Yankee-type "you don't know snow" remark here
- benberger
February 10, 2010 at 7:23pm
Having seen how Minnesota handles snow (and driving in it) versus the DC metro area, I'd much rather spend a winter storm in Minnesota. The plows are much more responsive, a lot of areas enforce alternate side of the street parking during the winter (prevents getting "plowed in"), and most people actually know how to drive when there's 3-4" of snow/slush on the ground. Downside was no snow days. So far four and counting here...
- bcbaird
February 10, 2010 at 7:37pm
In our snowbelt area, where necessary, our plows move the snow to the middle of the street, use front end loaders with heavy equipment size snowblowers attached to load trucks and put the snow somewhere else. It's not rocket science, but for sure more expensive.
- jet
February 11, 2010 at 12:18am
Oh, I should note, we only own the regular plows, everything else is contracted by contractors that use the equipment much more regularly (front end loaders, heavy equipment snow blowers, hauling trucks).
- jet
February 11, 2010 at 12:22am
Living in Chicago, and flying out of O'Hare on a not too-irregular basis I'm treated to some pretty good snow management. However you've got to spend a serious winter storm in Quebec City, Quebec. The old city looks very European, windy narrow & steep streets to boot. Their solution? Literally vacuum the snow up into dump trucks which then go and, well, dump it somewhere else. 3 feet overnight? Not a problem. Admittedly the old city is rather constrained geographically, but it's not like the rest of the city labours under un-cleared snow for days and weeks. So, as Rhubarb's said, this isn't a problem that can't be solved with money. The question is whether you want to.
- Nari224
February 11, 2010 at 4:32pm