Lincolnite

As a year-round bike commuter, I would like to commend the city (parks) on their excellent job of clearing the bike trails.  Mopac is almost always cleared, even before the streets.  There are a few of us out there that appreciate it!  I don’t care about the streets. People have unrealistic expectations.  Don’t go out if the streets are that bad!

Some of us have no choice but to use the streets to get to work or school and Mr. Wilson is right, I’m pretty sure I left parts of my suspension along Old Cheney and 40th streets.

We’re lucky the weather is helping to melt some of the ice and snow because the plows made a mess of some streets - causing traffic to slow down to 25 mph or slower (if you drive responsibly) to make it over the bumpy paths.

Should we expect perfectly cleared streets with no snow or ice on them?  Absolutely not.  But in some places it would have been better to leave the snow pack on the ground than create the rumble-bar hazards we encountered after the snow.

I’ve seen a lot worse snow removal efforts in Lincoln than we saw with this snow, so I’m hesitant to be too hard on the city.  But I’m pretty sure that a few spots rattled some fillings right out of my teeth.

I am not sure it is fair to say that people have unrealistic expectations. I have lived most of my life in much snowier parts of the midwest.

The snow removal here is really terrible. Roads are bad, parking lots are worse. For my street to have been icier and more dangerous, the city would have had to rent a Zamboni to cruise down the street. It is possible to have nearly complete snow removal by the time the snow stops—I have lived in several places that were able to do that in all but the most extreme (snow being measured in feet) conditions.

I don’t know if the city lacks the resources or the planning to pull it off—it seemed to me that the plows only visited my neighborhood days after the snow and made little effort (I saw a plow clear off part of one side of the street and then move on; another set of crazy yellow tractor looking things drove down the icy snow packed street with their plow ends up off the street or just barely grazing the street).

I agree with Allen. People’s expectations are mind-boggling. Everyone is going to have their own tales and versions of how well or poor the streets have been the past few days. Could a better job have been done? Sure, in hindsight a better job ALWAYS could have been done when it comes to ANYTHING. And yes, its clear now that the city was caught off guard with the weather forecast and all.

BUT the streets weren’t a complete snow apocalypse like some posters on the LJS comments sites made it out to be. Yesterday one of my wild-eyed neighbors was complaining about the snow and almost frothing at the mouth. What do you expect to be driving like Dale Earnhardt Jr the day after a major snowfall? 

I chalk “snowplow-gate 2007” up to geography. Lincoln is located in an area where the extreme snow you see further north isn’t a regular enough occurrence to warrant the city purchasing a fleet of plows like they have in places like Toronto or Minneapolis or what have you. If the city did that, people on the LJS site would female dog because it would be seen as an unnecessary expense. When there is the unusual and inordinate snowfall like there was on Sunday, then people on the LJS site will female dog because the city doesn’t have enough plows. That seems to me to be the sole function of the LJS comments site. One big avenue to female dog. (Not as if that’s necessarily bad or anything)

In anycase, I took the usual reasonable prudence one should take after a major snowfall (i.e. drive slower than usual, expect longer drive times, etc.) when I was out driving the past few days, and personally I had no problems, and hey guess what: I didn’t sustain any car damage at all!

Mr. T took my point. I lived in Denver for 8 winters. They had snow removal that never ceased to amaze me with its preparation, speed and effectiveness. BUT, they had eleventy billion trucks running 24/7 for 24 hours before a storm, through it, and after it until all was good. I think every single March the media ran the same story - “the Colorado Dept. of Transportation has used all of their street cleaning budget for the winter, and we have the two snowiest months ahead of us.” You can’t have it both ways. (Note that while the media always ran that story, no one I knew was complaining!)

The roads stunk, but they didn’t stop me from getting to church during the worst of the storm, then to the Children’s Museum Sunday evening, shopping all over town on Monday, running errands all over town Tuesday. All in my 2 wheel drive car. They weren’t THAT bad. None of my in-laws in central Nebraska blamed NPPD for being without power, so I’m not blaming the City for having bad streets.

Obviously I haven’t seen Lincoln streets but I drove through McCook today and the plowing effort was down right deplorable.  Even a week after the snow storm hit out there, there were still lanes (on HWY 6!) that were undriveable because snow still was still there.  I have seen some bad plow jobs in my day but I have NEVER seen it this bad like I saw today.