Grit Costs
Here's a question, in the light of Birmingham's roads being gridlocked for a few hours yesterday.
Would you like the authorities to invest a significant sum of money in being ready to deal with this sort of thing in the manner of countries where heavy snow is a reality for months on end?
Or would you rather our society just accepted that it only gets like this for a couple of days each year, if that, and that maybe we should just write off those days, appreciate the snow for what it is and chill?
It's a serious question. The cost of being ready to deal with snow is not going to be low, especially in an over-congested city like ours. Do you want to pay for it? For two days a year?
Photo by Lee Jordan
1 Comments:
The costs are greater than you think.
Not only would it require trucks to salt/sand/plow you also need to have the salt and sand depots at strategic locations so trucks can return and reload.
Add to that the need to have somewhere for plowed snow to go - there are no shoulders or boulevards in most urban areas. Where would roundabout snow go? Plus you would need higher grade asphalt in a lot of areas in order to withstand the damage of plowing.
Plus the real issue isn't the road conditions as much as it is that people don't have winter ready tires on their cars. All season radials would have made short work of most of the problems seen in the last few days.
It's too much expense to upgrade snow proofing for both the city and cars for what is likely to be a one or two day disruption once a year.
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