Yes, Capitol Hill Is Slippery -- Back To You, Kent!

This morning we saw a DOT truck cruising down 13th Avenue with a bed full of sand and its snowblade up. We can understand saving on sand, but saving on plow? Why not just plow everywhere you drive? On the bright side, it's a little easier to negotiate snowy sidewalks than icy ones.

Here's the Seattle Times on the snowfall (closings and commute, ugly commute) and over here we have the P-I (closings and commute). More fun is the P-I "snow blog."

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By MvB in News on January 16, 2007 10:50 AM

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MvB

Yes, you'd think that was why. However, this truck was driving along at 5mph (tops) on 13th Avenue, not the fastest way to get anywhere. I think the plow is hydraulic, so it's no problem to drop it for a bit and then pop it back up.

Joe

Why not just plow everywhere you drive?
Because you have to drive a lot slower when you're plowing, and your job is to plow streets in order of priority, which means getting to the bus routes and main arterials asap so that you can plow them. If you plow on your way there, you won't get to the priority streets until much later. So while everybody along your route might be happy, there will be many, many more unhappy people stuck on buses somewhere.