The city of Seattle does not use salt on the snowy/icy roads!!!
 

The city of Seattle does not use salt on the snowy/icy roads!!!

In the Pacific Northwest, we are having one of the worst runs of snow and ice in 50 years. It has never been like this and many of our Decembers' have been rainy or green.

But this year, we have gotten back to back snowstorms. Traffic is ridiculous. People are stuck on side roads for ~2 hours. The freeways are okay, because the STATE of Washington can use salt on the freeways since they go into the mountains... But the city of Seattle is being anal about being green and chooses NOT to use salt on many of the streets. So people can get to their homes, they cannot get to work and they definitely cannot get to do Holiday shopping...

I can understand that being green is okay for an occasional snow that lasts 2 days. But for 2 weeks we have been wrapped under a blanket of snow and ice. NO salt usage? WTH!!!

Search on Google for the news about this!!!

I am really POed with these people--another reason I am really not liking this place!!!

Yeah, I'm in Portland, so I know the feeling.
I don't know anything about salting or not.

I'd be okay with my city not using as much salt this winter if they'd actually PLOW.

ETA: The problem with where I live is that often right after it snows the temperature drops significantly, so low that salt isn't useful. And since they don't plow until a day or two after the snow, the snow's all packed down and slick as all hell.

As long as they keep using salt with ice storms, I'm okay.

They could use other things like sand too. That's what they use in the south. There's no excuse to not do "something" except that I heard they only have 27 snow plows.

As an aside, they are not salting as many roads or plowing as well as they used to in previous years here in metro Detroit either. It's a money thing, not a green thing though. Some roads just aren't getting done and those roads are getting scary dangerous to drive on.

Apparently in today's Seattle Times newspaper, they are saying that sand is worse than salt.

What happens with the sand is that it makes the road lumpy and uneven. Really messes up the suspension of some vehicles.

What's worse about Seattle is that we don't get weeks on end snow/ice like we've been getting. So the use of salt in this particular case outweighs the environmental risk that we are suffering right now. Most people have to work in these tough economic times and if the streets are poorly cleared, then what are we paying all these taxes for them to take care of us.

The other issue is our STATE DOT actually USES salt on the freeways. So, it is NOT a foreign concept in the State of Washington. It's just that these folks in Seattle, King County, Washington are beyond being anal retentive during this weather emergency and economic downturn...

You need to see some of the asinine comments by Seattle DOT... Too much redundancy for my tastes and the Governor ought to step in at this point and fix this issue since the Mayor is a lame duck. Seriously...

So many people I know have had horrible experiences getting to the West side or down to Portland. I decided to just stay here and enjoy some solitude and peace and quiet, but I can't believe some of the stories people are telling me.

I have a Subaru and a snow shovel, and haven't had to put my cables on, but I think there is a serious lack of common sense on many people. Don't try to drive over a three or four foot high snow berm if you have a GEO METRO. I've gotten so much exercise from helping stupid people get their vehicles unstuck.

I made a list of vehicles that haven't moved in my neighborhood and turned it into the police today so they can get the vehicles moved or towed so the plows can get through. If a car is from Ada county (Boise) and hasn't moved since August, they've pretty much decided to leave it there.

I am STUCK in Portland. I was visiting a friend last week, and was suppose to leave sunday. Well, my flight to Cincinnati was canceled, a long with a billion flights this last weekend. When could I be rescheduled for a seat? FRIDAY. So I am sitting here on waiting list after waiting list, hoping that maybe, at least once, that my number will be in the teens. THE KICKER: my friend's flight left monday for Paris. So, I am stuck in this town for christmas and I know anyone here. yay, me.

One of the communities around here uses beet juice instead of straight brine.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008...ice_beats.html

Road crews have spread tens of thousands of gallons of beet juice on Ohio roads this winter as a less corrosive way to keep ice and snow away. Results have been mostly positive so far.

Akron ordered 4,000 gallons of the juice, called Geomelt, last year and used all of it in the past month. The city anticipates ordering another 4,000 gallons soon.

"It's doing what the sales people said it would," Public Works Manager Paul Barnett said.


When combined with rock salt brine and calcium chloride, the juice blocks ice from forming on pavement even at extremely low temperatures.

The concoction is supposed to stick to the road better than traditional treatments. And adding beet juice lessens the use and effect of calcium chloride, which corrodes cars, concrete and steel.

I heard about Trenton on the news and thought that was ridiculous. Maybe money should first go to safety before they blow it all on the Trenton Street Fair and the Taste of Trenton. My subdivision has been getting plowed and salted constantly, which confuses me. It made sense when Mayor and Chief Hall were in their respected offices, but there is no one of city or county significance here. The roads altogether sucked yesterday.

I think cities and counties need to think of safety first, green later. And really, is using salt REALLY that non-green friendly?

As living in one of the most tree huggiest States that every exisited, Washington State, according to the "eco-terrorist" salt is ABSOLUTELY NOT green friendly...

But neither are combustible engines that are idling for hours waiting to get home from traffic, which in one area of downtown Seattle, folks waited 2+ hours to just get on a groomed by salted freeway!!!

Now, I can understand using a green alternative in Seattle. Really it's not like other places that REALLY get snow. Most of time, when we do get snow, it's only 2-3 days and it all melts. Zero reason to use salt all the time... But these last storms that many other states felt, ain't no usual 2-3 days of snow--more like 2-3 weeks of it with ice, now...

They've been plowing and salting my subdivision, but I don't think they ever plowed Van Horn after Friday's dump of snow. So, our side streets were great, but Wayne County roads were awful. They didn't do the turn arounds on Fort for a long time either. Those finally seem ok now. Woodhaven was out today, plowing snow away from some of the storm drains that were covered in the subdivision, because the water in the street had nowhere to go. They've been really good, actually. It's the Wayne County roads.. ugh.

ETA: I was at my uncle's house in Warren tonight and their main roads are fine but his street was awful. It was if they hadn't plowed and now it was half melty/slushy in the street. When it freezes, there will be no driving on that street at all.

Salt helps melt the snow, but can cause worse issues. Without an extremely precise application, the melted snow simply refreezes and then you have glare ice -- much more dangerous than snow.

Sand is often a significantly better choice. Even a salt/sand mixture is often not as good, as the sand just gets frozen back in to the ice, or washed away.

Smart driving does infinitely better, but "smart drivers" are definitely more the exception than the rule.

Now that geomelt -- if it really keeps ice from forming, it'd be worth its weight in gold.

Environmental activism has gone too far, there's no way that using salt to clear roads would seriously endanger the environment!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...leanup23m.html

Here's one article from a Seattle paper which mentions why salt and sand are not their first choice, but doesn't go into much detail. One reason why Seattle wouldn't use the chemicals is more about geography than about tree-hugging. All of that runs into the sewers and directly into Puget Sound. Granted stuff used on the east side can run into the Columbia and the Snake, and eventually out to the Pacific. It is also much more humid on the west side due to the rain forest and the proximity to the Ocean. It is much drier over here, which can help, and it stays colder longer (though it is raining and melting now, ugh, so it can refreeze snow on top of ice).

This article http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...lackice20.html discusses other alternative deicing such as waste water from cheese making. I'd also not like salt as the underneath of my car has corrosion, which didn't happen from my town, but from previous winters in Alaska before I bought it and from traveling in other states.

While agree with you on an occasional snow that lasts only 2-3 days. It is very irresponsible of KING county of Washington State, to purport this logic when people, nor transportation, can get to their places of work. Other counties, such as Pierce which has Tacoma and Everett, which I think is either Snohomish or its own county (I apologize for not knowing) use salt on their streets.

The other issue Trash has not been picked up for 2-3 weeks in some places because the trucks cannot get to certain areas.

If people are paying property taxes, etc., then they are owed some level of living in human decency. Last I looked, Washington State is a part of the UNITED STATES! And sometimes, King county seems to forget this with their elitist aristocracy. Believe me if the road weren't groomed in Mercer Island, you would have all kinds of laws changed.

The other issue is here: Jesse Jones of King 5 news... He tells it like it is... If you want your street plowed, (206) 386-1218... They are saying no one requested plowing!!! King was not plowing some people's streets because they did not call and request it... Now that is some BS.

Is there not a snow route for plowing? Maybe that's something I'm taking for granted because there is a plan for when it is going to snow, and you know which roads will be cleared. Since I'm renting my landlord pays to have snow from our house removed, but we have sidewalk laws which the city isn't enforcing.

What isn't helping is the 45 mph and higher winds while it is snowing. The water on the ground is freezing and snow is piling on top of it, and it is pretty dangerous out there. I'm fortunate enough I can walk to work, but with parking I'm damned if I want to park in my garage, and damned if I park on the street. I could have a coworker pick me up a couple blocks away and walk down, but it is so stupid I live half a block from a main road and people use my street to avoid the highway that they can't plow it.

In King County, there is no snow routes for plowing. All routes that get plowed are the freeways that are governed by the State of Washington, which uses salt.

So streets like Mercer St. and West Lake Sammamish--don't get plowed. Even with 5 inches of ice with fresh powder snow. Now King County can say what it wants when the snow is only going to last 2-3 days and use alternatives as much as they want. But, when the State shuts down both I-90 and 520 freeways (another issue in and of itself), a whole bunch of people attempt to drive the by the top of Lake Washington into Seattle or take the tortuous trip on I-405 south into Seattle, which is treacherous and the only safest road to get into Seattle might be Elliot Bay Way--since the Alaskan Way Viaduct is in very poor shape...

And as some Seattlelites pride themselves, they can barely drive in the water, much less on ice.

This is NO ordinary situation.

As far as contracting the plowing out, that would have been nice, however, all the folks who were tapped did it for freeways/highways and highest bidder... Where I live, simple snow shovels were UNAVAILABLE by the 2nd snowstorm! :eek:

Is the public transportation working? It would seem smart to make sure those routes were clear and to encourage people to use that (though are they really being smart?). I remember the storm a couple weeks ago, a city bus was just abandoned on the street in Spokane. Even the plows here have chains on, which I didn't need until the ice puddle formed at the bottom of my driveway.

I hope this crap is dealt with by MLK Jr. weekend. I'm planning to come over with two of my girls to go to the Lucy exhibit (and other stuff) and I'm not interested in scary Seattle drivers (plus we want to use public transpo, as much as possible).

LOL... Metro and Sound transit are VERY PO'ed about their latest treatment. Many of their buses AND their commuter trains were stuck in the 2nd snowstorm and ice. Many of the buses could not make their general routes in the downtown city center. Moreover if they did make it, they were extraordinarily late. Folks either were fed up and did not go into work.

My husband chose to drive, he has 4-wheel drive. The freeways were clear! It was tough getting to the freeways from the side streets due to the stupidity of King county and Seattle's Mayor's office.

That Mercer St.--is already a mess--called the Mercer mess, but it took 2 hours to move the less than 1 quarter of a mile distance. I used to drive that when I worked over there--it was bad when it was dry and in the rain--imagine when there is ALOT of snow and ice? Glad I don't do that anymore...


As far as MLK day--who knows? We are schedule for snow on 12/31 and a few days later. But it may be snow/rain showers and mostly in the foothills...

My husband and I are thinking there will be another snow shower in the Southern North Pole... ;)

OK, OK, I've been out of town for the past 10 days, so I'm just responding to this now.

I'll have you know that we made several trips from Kenmore to Bellevue after the snow and were fine. The only time my Honda Civic got stuck was in my mom's neighborhood because it hadn't been plowed.

The state does NOT use salt on I-405 or I-5. It uses SAND and liquid de-icer, which follow in a truck behind the plowers. In the mountains they might use salt, but I know they also use sand. In addition to the hazards to our waterways, which you know we have lots of here, salt is also very corrosive and creates lots of damage to cars and roads. Anyway, all the salt in the world would not have helped us after this storm. We got 16 inches of snow here - the roads needed to be plowed, not salted! The biggest hazard on the roads in this storm was all of the snow being tossed around on the freeways that hadn't been plowed yet. It was the biggest snow storm in decades, and as you noted, we don't get that kind of weather here often enough to warrant spending big bucks on more plowers. So is it really that surprising that we weren't prepared to deal with it? All of us locals know that Seattle is filled with hills akin to San Francisco - four wheel drives, salt, sand and chains are great, but it would take a miracle for most to get up our hills. Most of us just stayed put and worked from home if we could. I was happy the power stayed on!

Anyway, don't you live in Redmond? I work in Seattle, but live on the Eastside just like you and therefore that's what I cared the most about. Mayor Nickels is a joke and I hope the city votes him out this year, but in the end they're the ones that have to live with him. If you're unhappy with the roads in Redmond, blame Microsoft.

I was waiting for your take!!! :)

I didn't know they chose to NOT use salt on I-405 and I-5--did they use salt up in Everett that got hit pretty hard? IDK?

I didn't drive during the snow in Redmond. Too many looney tunes on the road. My husband ventured out later... But, he has 4WD, as do I but I can't drive in the mess, like he can.

What got me is the Mercer St. mess. I used to work over there. I am glad I don't work over there now. LOL...

Then Mayor Nickels says the handling of the roads and streets in Seattle was superior--like what happened during Hurricane Katrina... I think most people in various areas were prepared for 3-5 days of 2-3 inches of snow. Not a complete shutdown like we experienced. There were some dumbasses that will NEVER learn that driving 100 mph on ice uphill in a Smartcar, is not very bright... And we didn't hear about that many folks sticking generators in their houses this past year...

But when I saw the King 5 news catching the guy plowing the snow on various streets saying you have to request for your street to be cleared, that was when I started this thread...

Microsoft has issues... LOL... PM me... Some chit is about to go down, publicly about Microsoft... And yeah, it has to do with Bill and Melinda... ;)

I've lived all over the country, from the Midwest and Northeast, where they use salt very freely, to Dallas, where all they have are sand trucks.

I fall somewhere in the middle on this - I can see the point that Seattle greens are trying to make, and in some northern cities where I've lived the use of salt seemed a bit overboard, but the city cannot come to a complete halt for lack of anything being used.

Of course, it's SO easy for me to sit down here in Florida and tell others who have to live with the snow and ice how to conduct their business!

I am disliking you right now with the Florida thing... ;)

Anywho, it is snowing here right now. It is said that it will switch to rain. Either way there is ice and the morning commute is going to be a flub...

No sand or salt is going get through any kinna ice...

We're now under a snow load roof warning. Since the previous stuff hasn't cleared it is just going to get worse, and that will be compounded by all the college students coming back and parking willy nilly.

How was your drive this morning? No ice to be found on my way into Seattle...just some slush in a couple places.

Also, the mayor has announced that the city of Seattle is going to be using salt now when necessary. I stick by my original point, though, that salt and sand don't matter at all when the roads haven't been plowed.

We've got a snow day for the University here, and hopefully they will get some plowing done. The snow stopped and it is windy, and foggy, the rain should be here soon and hopefully it won't flood if the storm drains are ice jammed.