Significant impacts on U.S. transportation planning are forecast in a new report about to be released by the Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Academies of Science. TRB Special Report 290: Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation concedes that "Little consensus exists among transportation professionals that climate change is occurring or warrants action now." But the report identifies "plausible future scenarios" which represent "significant challenges for transportation professionals." The committee "finds compelling scientific evidence that climate change is occurring, and that it will trigger new, extreme weather events."Special Report 290 identifies "five climate changes of particular importance to transportation and estimatedsthe probability of their occurrence during the twenty-first century." Included, as #4, is "Increases in intense precipitation events. It is highly likely (greater than 90 percent probability of occurrence) that intense precipitation events will continue to become more frequent in widespread areas of the United States." Louisiana being America's largest salt-producing state, the salt industry will be particularly interested in the report's prediction of increased coastal flooding, particularly of the Gulf coast and drier conditions in the upper Midwest "resulting in lower water levels and reduced capactiy to ship agricultural and other bulk commodities." Among the adaptive operational responses, the first example identified is "Snow and ice control accounts for about 40 percent of annual highway operating budgets in the northern U.S. states" and "operational responses are likely to become more routine and proactive than today's approach of treating severe weather on an ad hoc emergency basis." Roadway designers are encouraged to recognize the likelihood of more freeze-thaw cycles. In this, of course, snowfighting professionals are already well advanced in their "adaptation." The committee speculates that there will be "benefits for safety and reduced interruptions if frozen precipitation shifts to rainfall."

Canadian discussions and studies are more advanced than in the U.S. and also predict impacts on use of road salt for winter maintenance. In "Climate Change and Ontarios's Winter Roads: Trends and Impacts on Ontario Winter Road Maintainence Ops" and "Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: A Canadian Perspective," experts agreed that salt usage in southern and western Ontario would be unchanged by global warming, but that salt usage would increase in northern and eastern parts of the province.

The American Automobile Association last week released The AAA Crashes vs. Congestion Report arguing that societal costs from traffic fatalities and injuries is more than double the costs of congestion. Good reminder. We object only to the "versus" separating the twin concerns. We must insist on roads that are safe and congestion-free.

The study by Cambridge Systematics estimates that traffic crashes cost each American $1,051 for a total economic burden on the economy of $164.2 billion. Data from the Texas Transportation Institute put the tab for congestion at $67.6 billion or $430 per person. With Congress readying itself to tackle reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program next year and with the federal Highway Trust Fund approaching insolvency, these measures should be front-and-center in the public policy discussion.

For years, the anti-highway lobby has inveighed against "paving over America" and the highway lobby has foolishly cast the argument in terms of the deteriorating condition of the nation's roads and bridges. Too true. And when the I-35W bridge plunged into the Mississippi, the poignancy of the roadbuilders' lament was manifest. The thought of an aging and inadequate roadway infrastructure contributing to the 42,642 people killed last year on American roads is totally unacceptable. We know most of those deaths are avoidable and now we know the cost of under-funding highway improvments.

The quality of the policy debate, however, would be improved if we move beyond contesting the number of "structurally deficient" bridges or pothole-pocked or rutted roadway surfaces. Nor should we accept the notion that we need to starve investments in congestion relief to pay for safer roads. The two go hand in hand. Non-recurring congestion (the kind not caused by "rush hour") is associated with clearing traffic crashes and combatting weather conditions like snow & ice storms that contribute so much to those crashes. Simply applying salt as part of a professional winter operations program cuts 88.3% of the injury crashes and keeps the roads reliably available for our mobile society. In fact, in most states, the cost of failing to keep winter roads open through winter maintenance operations generally costs more for each day of failure than the annual cost of snowfighting (data by Global Insight, Inc.).

As Congress sets up the debate on highway spending, let's focus attention on the outcomes we can expect our roads to deliver. We shouldn't be building roads to create jobs (or re-elect politicos) nor should we endanger drivers' lives and our national economic competitiveness by short-sightedly opposing transportation improvements due to suspicion over the self-interested motivation of construction companies. Let's measure transportation outcomes -- the service we driver are paying for through our gas taxes -- and invest to reduce the tragic waste of more than 40,000 lives every year and reverse the corrosive erosion of reliable highway mobility caused by congestion.

And let's let the engineers and the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Operations help us define the choices rather than jury-rig our national highway priorities through Congressional earmarks.

It's not AAA versus AASHTO (the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials). Both AAA and AASHTO care deeply about BOTH safety and mobility. Let's not make this mountain tougher to scale than it already is.

Congressional earmarks for transportation projects are distorting spending priorities and delaying improvments to America's air and surface transportation infrastructure and those delays impose huge costs on national productivity and competitiveness, according to an analysis by Bruce Katz and Robert Puentes in the March issue of The Atlantic, aptly titled "Clogged arteries." Katz and Puentes equate the unfocused investment to thickly-spread peanut butter.

A better approach, they argue would be to allocate the $50 billion in annual surface transportation spending where the probems are. Cities are being shortchanged, they say.

The nation's 100 largest metropolitan regions generate 75 percent of its economic output. They also handle 75 percent of its foreign sea cargo, 79 percent of its air cargo, and 92 percent of its air-passenger traffic. Yet of the 6,373 earmarked projects that dominate the current federal transportation law, only half are targeted at these metro areas.

And infrastructure investment is critical to jobs creation, they explain:

In the past, strategic investments in the nation's connective tissue-to develop railroads in the 19th century and the highway system in the 20th-turbocharged growth and transformed the country. But more recently, America's transportation infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth and evolution of the economy. As earmarks have proliferated, the government's infrastructure investment has lost focus. A recent academic study shows that public investment in transportation in the 1970s generated a return approaching 20 percent, mostly in the form of higher productivity. Investments in the 1980s generated only a 5 percent return; in the 1990s, the return was just 1 percent.

Check out their interactive map estimating road-traffic congestion in 2010. The cost of congestion, including added freight cost and lost productivity for commuters, reached $78 billion in 2005. Half of that occurred in just 10 metro areas.

Shanghai ended a month of snowstorm-induced energy conservation Leap Year night, turning on its nightime landscaping lights, above (photo: Shanghai Daily). The first months of 2008 provided an expensive ($22 billion) lesson in the critical need to keep winter highways reliably available in winter weather to maintain economic performance in modern economies.

Blogging is often casual and light-hearted. But it can still be informative. After a serious interview on shortages of deicing salt, Albany (NY) Times-Union reporter Stephanie Earls was intrigued with the tidbits she picked up about salt and shared them with the timesunion.com "Life" community -- including our tip that homeowners could take advantage of the same anti-icing technique now considered "cutting edge" in the roadway winter maintenance profession.

Salt shortage, Winter 2008. Real? How bad? The Salt Institute "tells all" in an online Winter Maintenance podcast .

We earlier reported that lack of roadway snow and ice removal in China had gridlocked much of the country and imposed $3 billion in economic costs to the nation's economy. The Chinese government announced today that it now calculates the storm damage at $15 billion.

It's been two weeks now since officals admitted they were unprepared. More than 1.3 million soldiers have been mobilized in responding to the snow emergency.

This week, the New Scientist reported on an eco-friendly new form of concrete, made from fly ash and slag removed from powerstations and steeleworks. The concrete is under testing in Australia.

Although its touted for its minimal greenhouse gas footprint, some of its longer term functional value may result from its more alkaline starting material. In particular, it may be possible that this concrete is less susceptable to the corrosive action of the various salts used in winter maintenance.

The latest research on the impact of road salts by the University of Toronto Civil Engineering graduate group under Professor Doug Hooton indicates that sodium chloride has the lowest impact on concrete corrosion. However, this new form of concrete may provide an even greater resistance to corrosion.

We can only hope.

"Wild winter weather across China crippled energy and transport, and caused roughly 3 billion US dollars of economic loss," according to today's China Daily. For the past two weeks, snowstorms have pounded central, eastern and southern China "causing deaths, structural collapses, power blackouts, highway closures and crop destruction." Hunan Province and western Guizhou Province have been hardest hit, but the storm's impact was broad and severe; 220,000 were evacuated in Jiangxi province where 13 have died in snow-related accidents.

Toronto was embarrassed several years ago when it needed to call on Canadian army troops to help overwhelmed local snowfighters. China has mobilized 158,000 Peoples Liberation Army troops (about the number the U.S. has in Iraq), and supplemented those with more than 992,000 police and 303,000 "paramilitary" personnel. In Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, where the accumulated snow reached about 13 inches, the provincial government reports mobilizing a quarter million volunteers to shovel snow.

Yet roadways are reported uncleared. Seven of the eight highways connecting Guangdong and Hunan provinces have been cut off. At least 25 bus passengers were killed when a bus ran off a road "covered with a thick layer of ice and the temperature about minus two degrees Celsius." About 11,000 vehicles were piled up on the highways in eastern Anhui Province, where half of the state and provincial highways were crippled by the snow. China Daily reports that "more than 8,000 traffic police were dispatched to keep order on the 40-kilometer congested section in Anhui - nearly one policeman for every stranded car! Vegetable prices in cities have more than doubled.

Perhaps the storm clouds will have a silver lining and stimulate improved winter maintenance on Chinese roadways, opening a vast new market in highway deicing salt.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review just published a well deserved story about the town of Cranberry, PA. This small but progressive town of 28,000 residents was recently the recipient of the Salt Institute's Salt Storage Award. The article described Cranberry's covered public works storage facility that has a capacity to store 7,000 tons of road salt.

Peter Longini, a township spokesman said, "The facility allows us to buy when the product is cheap. Some years, depending on what the winter is like, there is a problem moving the material,"

Make's sense doesn't it?

SI president Dick Hanneman said, "This is an example of the fact that it does not take a huge agency like PennDOT to do it right,"

Congratulations once again to the town of Cranberry, which will benefit from this structure, both economically and ecologically for years to come.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review just published a well deserved story about the town of Cranberry, PA. This small but progressive town of 28,000 residents was recently the recipient of the Salt Institute's Salt Storage Award. The article described Cranberry's covered public works storage facility that has a capacity to store 7,000 tons of road salt.

Peter Longini, a township spokesman said, "The facility allows us to buy when the product is cheap. Some years, depending on what the winter is like, there is a problem moving the material,"

Make's sense doesn't it?

SI president Dick Hanneman said, "This is an example of the fact that it does not take a huge agency like PennDOT to do it right,"

Congratulations once again to the town of Cranberry, which will benefit from this structure, both economically and ecologically for years to come.

Every winter, millions of tons of snow and ice control materials are applied to North American roadways, sodium chloride chief among them. Applauded by highway safety advocates and economic development interests who extol safe and passable winter driving, use of deicers and abrasives has been accompanied by a half-century of concern and distrust by environmental groups and citizens wondering if their tax dollars are being well-spent. Too often, it seems, the decision on which material to apply and in what amounts has been seen as more art than science - and some people just don't like "modern art"!

This past week, the Transportation Research Board published a new set of research-based Guidelines for the Selection of Snow and Ice Control Materials to Mitigate Environmental Impacts.." (NCHRP Report 577 .

Previous studies have exhaustively evaluated the effectiveness of the several deicers being used. The Salt Institute's summer 2004 issue of Salt and Highway Deicing answered the question: "Are you using the right amount of ice control chemical ?" It reported results of another NCHRP study (NCHRP Report 526 ). Still other studies have examined the environmental impacts of salt and other deicing alternatives. None have tried to integrate the questions of material selection, application rate and environmental impact. That's what Report 577 has done.

The Report examined 42 deicing chemicals, chief among them salt (NaCl) and compared salt with two chloride deicers (CaCl and MgCl), two acetate deicers (KA and CMA) and with abrasives, creating a decision tool to quantify costs, performance and impacts on environment and infrastructure and reach objective recommendations. Here's what the report found:

It didn't surprise us much at the Salt Institute that the decision tool, applied to priorities of current snowfighting practice as determined by survey, gave the edge to salt. In the temperature range for most snowfall, 25° to 30°, salt (NaCl) scored 90.4 compared to second-place MgCl (71.1 to 76.4), followed by CaCl (64.8 to 76.1), KA (23.9 to 31.6) and CMA (18.2 to 19.2). Sodium chloride retains its strong preference score of 90.4 down to 15° F (at that temperature, MgCl is 83.6; CaCl, 77; KA, 35.3 and CMA, 18.6). This model, of course, reflects the current preference for cost-savings and roadway clearing performance.

The second example weighted all four variables equally, which means environment and infrastructure impacts were half the scoring. Surprise, while salt's advantage was muted by lowering the weight of its strongest suits, its lower cost and effective performance, the results were unchanged. Salt earned the highest scores down to 15° F and the other deicers follow in rank, though more tightly bunched (e.g. at 15°, NaCl is 75; MgCl, 72.2; CaCl, 68.1; KA, 52.8; and CMA, 43.1.

The real news was the impact using a third example with "environment/infrastructure priority" weighting -- three-fourth of the score representing environmental and infrastructure impacts, a quarter for performance -- and totally ignoring cost. In this example, all four deicers are tightly clustered between 15° and 30° F. Potassium Acetate earns top honors at 63.8 to 67.4; narrowly edging out CMA at 63.5 to 63.6; NaCl is third, 62.5 at each temperature; MgCl is 59.2 to 63.1 (edging out salt below 20° F; while CaCl registers 57.2 to 61.0.

There you have it: an objective study integrating concerns of cost, performance and environmental/infrastructure impacts which shows that salt is the superior choice in most circumstances. There are times and location when other products are preferred, but in normal circumstances salt will be the best choice to keep winter roads safe and passable.

I write, snowbound at home, enjoying the fast-accumulating heaven-sent white powder that has converted our yard into a winter wonderland. And that's even before considering the market consequences for the salt industry!

To the north, however, heat is rising in Pennsylvania, over that state's handling of last week's snow emergency. Some may remember the instructive fate of Michael Bilandic. He had the big shoes to fill as mayor of Chicago following the first Richard Daley. Chicago is justly proud of its historic moniker as "The city that works." Snowfighting in Chicago is world class and citizens have high expectations. New mayor Bilandic misjudged in ordering belated response to his first winter's snowstorms and, as they say, the rest is history. Unforgiving citizens unceremoniously ousted him at the next election.

Enter PA Gov. Ed Rendell who as mayor of Philadelphia and through his first gubernatorial term recorded consistent success in keeping the commonwealth's roads safe and passable. Road users, perhaps, invented the phrase: what have you done for me lately? Last week's unsuccessful storm response left thousands of motorists stranded for up to 24 hours and has generated a political storm destined to be longer than the 50-mile backup on the highways.

As the Philadelphia Inquirer explained, though Gov. Rendell quickly put into practice the post-Katrina strategy of accepting blame and commissioning an independent inquiry, both the Republican Senate and Democratic House have been quick to schedule hearings into the manmade disaster emanating from the natural disaster. The newspaper thinks the agile Rendell will survive, but officials at the state's emergency response agency and PennDOT might not.

They say we never appreciate our health until it's gone or impaired. The same is doubtless true about highway safety and mobility. Each winter we get fresh reminders. Hopefully, those reminders need not be so painful.

Still, no plows on our roads in Arlington, VA -- and no cars have ventured out for a couple hours. But it IS beautiful!

Because we get so close to winter storm watching and are closely engaged in snowfighting, the vast public concern for restoring safe winter streets sometimes surprises us. And others. Dr Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), New York City, used this week's edition of her HealthFactsAndFears.com to decry the furor over transfat (she feels the health concern is minimal) while noting: "the much more significant dangers of an ice storm seem to leave us unfazed." She explained:

Last week's ice storm was also an imminent threat to the life and health of New Yorkers, as should have been readily apparent. When I woke up Wednesday last week, I heard Meredith Vieira mention on the _Today_ show that she had taken an ugly fall and hit her head on ice while entering 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Apparently, two security guards went down with her. ...

Several times on the walk to work, I nearly fell. My staff had similar stories of near-accidents but arrived at the office intact. My twenty-nine year-old daughter was not so lucky. On Wednesday, the cab she was riding in slid into another vehicle. The next day, she slipped on a City street, had the full weight of her body fall on her arm, and fractured her shoulder. She was in terrible pain for the next twenty-four hours and, as write this, just received X-rays and an MRI.

As I left the City yesterday heading for meetings in New Jersey, a large truck came up to the right of the car I was in (a car service with a driver) and cut in front of us. Seconds later, what was probably hundreds of pounds of ice shards fell from the truck's roof and pelted the windshield of our vehicle. The seriousness of the impact only became apparent when the driver lifted the visor: the epicenter of the ice assault was on the glass right in front of his seat, which was now broken. ...

The City was negligent in not warning New Yorkers about the dangers posed by ice. The City schools should have been closed -- setting a standard for offices (many offices, including mine, close anytime there is a city-wide school closure). City officials should have advised the elderly in particular to stay off the sidewalks and streets.

We don't often disagree with Dr. Whelan, but we part company with her passivity in the face of winter weather. Here in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County schools were closed three days this past week because of inadequate snowfighting. We applaud Mayor Bloomberg for keeping New York's streets sufficiently passable to keep schools and businesses open. Failure in snowfighting exacts not only the human toll Dr. Whelan describes, but imposes an economic burden of vast proportion. Snowfighting is New York's greatest public works expense, yet an entiire winter's snowfighting expense is less than the lost wages, retail sales and foregone tax revenues if snowfighters fail to keep roads safe and passable.

So we find oursleves agreeing on her main point: "Why can't we make rational decisions about how to prioritize risks?" And we agree that responses to snow emergencies often fall short of perfection, but we would argue vigorously that we must rachet up our storm response, not rachet down concern for such relatively minor "threats" as transfat.

If you ever questioned the value of salt for deicing, take a moment to check out the video, Bumper cars on ice in Portland, OR .

Any driver who ever experienced the total lack of control on ice, as the poor folks in this video did, will never have to be convinced of the value of deicing!

Road salt is a life saver!!

Winter finally arrives -- big time! Though storms have crippled transportation in the Plains and Rockies, the first significant storm struck a broad swath from Texas through New England over the past few days. Texas Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural was postponed due to icy road and the Associated Press reports 41 storm-related deaths . We've had our wake-up call.(photo: Kelly Kerr/Tulsa World, via The Associated Press)