You know that Portland is small time when it allows a minor snowstorm to completely paralyze the transportation system for days.
The city refuses to use salt on the roads. Instead, they throw down gravel, which not only does nothing to melt the snow, but when the snow finally does melt, it puts dents in your car body and chips in your windshield.
The Mayor tells us to stay home, the schools close, businesses lose money and goods and services can't move around the region.
What is the cost? Does anybody care? The financial impact of a single day of a crippled transportation system is immense, but leaders in this town act as if we are a charming hamblet in central Iowa in the 1850's. "Just stay home," they tell us.
Stay home? Tell that to the drywall contractor. Or the IT consultant. Or the electrician, or the nurse.
I lived in Chicago for a decade. When it snows they put salt on the roads, and the plows get busy. It takes a lot of snow to slow that place down.
Sure, it wouldn't make sense for Portland to have Chicago's level of snow preparedness, since it snows only once or twice a year. But would it be too much to ask to ptu salt down instead of gravel? Or for snow plows to hit the major roads?
I guess allowing snow to cripple the roads is just another strategy in the war on the car.
2 comments:
You think it's bad in Portland? I live in Newberg and I don't think they even have a plow! The Hospital parking lot still isn't cleared, let alone the grocery stores! Sherwood is just as bad. You would think someone with farm equipment could scrape the parking lots or some of the streets. Could't we hire them?
Rob
Ya know what the funniest part I saw on Wednesday morning?
Out by the Barber and 19th the south bound lanes on I5 and Barber were plowed by 7am but they seemed to have missed the north bound lanes.
War on cars indeed!
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