Salt & Winter Roadway Safety: For Roadway Maintainers (Snowfighters)

Heroic snowfighters who work around the clock to restore safe roads in winter storms tell pollsters they feel unappreciated. Look at it this way: the public really does value what you do. Ever think they take what you do for granted? Many agencies measure success when the phone STOPS ringing during a storm; nobody calls to say "thanks." But mess up and, wow, you really know how much they care!

Take, for example a column in this week's Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle-Herald by columnist Marilla Stephenson . Writing in the lee of a 19-centimeter snowstorm that devasted the city last Monday, she gave voice to what was likely a broad frustration:

I have had it up to you-know-where with the pathetic performance at city hall, often masked by attempts to blame people for their own misfortune. The best defence is a good offence, as the old strategy saying goes. Blame somebody else.

In all the blame-shifting spewing from the condescending mouths at city hall over the past few days, I never heard the words "salt truck" from any of them. Just excuses about 100-odd snowplows being caught in the same gridlock as the rest of us. Oh, and there was that city bus blocking the bridge. Tee-hee-hee.

All the problems they were droning on about happened after it was too late to do anything about the gridlock. What about before?

Don’t we have any SALT trucks?

And if we do, why were they not dispatched to salt major arterial routes, especially outbound from our traditionally traffic-challenged peninsula, as soon as the snow began?

Nope, it’s sit tight and let’s see what happens.

What passes for winter road maintenance in this municipality becomes more of a joke every year. They argue down at the big round table for hours about whether one councillor’s district gets plowed sooner than another’s in the 24 or 48 hours after a storm, and they take turns accusing staff of failing to answer questions.

Has anybody asked why, year after year, commuters are reduced to three-hour trips home — trips that normally take 20 to 30 minutes — when we are hit with something in the meagre vicinity of four inches of snow? This is nothing new. Monday’s snow came fast, but it doesn’t take nearly as much as the 19 centimetres that fell (only eight inches, by the way) to create havoc during rush hour.

This, from a city administration that keeps boasting about our world-class city, our smart city, our progressive city, is not performance.

Mayor Peter Kelly at least had the good sense to acknowledge the city "didn’t get it right." The master of understatement went on to say that a review had been launched. "If we can find a better way in which to do it, then we have that responsibility to do so," he told The Chronicle Herald.

Two words, Peter: SALT TRUCKS.

She continues:

I seem to recall a forecast issued as early as the preceding Friday warning about snow on Monday. So it’s early December and rain changes to snow a few hours early, and this comes as some kind of a tremulous shock to the folks in charge of winter maintenance? Still, there’s not a salt truck in sight.

By the time I got home, I was locked in a white-knuckle catatonic state somewhere between raging fury and bitter resignation. Three hours had elapsed since my trip began.

I saw one plow, going the other way with its blade up, in that whole time. Oh, and at one point there was a garbage truck collecting trash on Oxford Street. That sure helped move things along.

I’m sure every driver in every one of those cars has a similar story, as does every commuter who waited in vain for a bus that never arrived.

I accept that Mother Nature plays a part in winter traffic gridlock, but I am sick and tired of excuses that suggest we have no technology to fight back. ...

I can’t help but think that a little strategically placed salt when the storm first hit could have enabled a lot of drivers to get home sooner....

Good advice, Ms. Stephenson: salt trucks, indeed.