A summary, in three parts:

1) My bus wasn’t running. Therefore, the city, or county, or somebody, should spend millions on a plan in case it snows like this again.

2) EXCLAMATION POINTS COUNT TOWARD MY WORD COUNT!!!

3) This snowstorm is EXACTLY like Katrina, and Nickels is EXACTLY like Bush. Think about it.

58 replies on “I Read Joel Connelly So You Don’t Have To”

  5. I have to say that this is what you run against Nickels on. If we can’t deal with a snow storm what happens with a 8.5 earthquake centered in Elliot Bay?

    Yeah, Connelly is a blow hole but there IS a legitimate point to be made about the response.

  6. Connelly said, “Seattleites have been marvelous to each other over the past nine days, but the pokiness of our public services must be addressed.”

    See, for me it’s this pandering that makes me sick. At the same time he accuses politicians of cynically dodging blame, he cynically kisses the readers’ ass.

    For days there was no other house on my block with a shoveled sidewalk, and that’s how the whole neighborhood looked. That right there tells you how marvelous people have been to each other.

    I’ve been tracking all the nasty, vicious online ragging and bickering about this snowstorm and the salt and the plowing, and other than “marvelous” Seattlites at each other’s throats, the main threat they’re making seems to be that the Republicans are going to pack up and leave in disgust at the way the “liberals” deal with snow. Imagine if only they did.

  7. Yes. Why the fuck are busses STILL not running? I just walked the entire route of the #8 and there’s not an inch of snow anywhere. Anywhere!! And it’s fucking raining out and I forgot my umbrella. And I have to work the day after Christmas, a day when there is no work to be done. so I’m just sitting in a cubicle, wet, mindlessly surfing the Internet.

  8. Connelly is right on the difficulty of finding out info on the buses — finding the page that tell the status isn’t totally obvious. I’ve looked every other day, and feel like I had to navigate some strange way each time to find it.
    But one of his other “points” was something I actually had a totally different conclusion about. How many CARS being on the road (when people were told driving was a bad idea but did so anyway) compacted the snow and ice, creating slippery streets? It’s highly unlikely that a street that still has a significant icepack ever got plowed in the first place, but more likely it was packed down by more and more cars driving when people had been advised not to do so. That’s been my observation, thus far, as I’ve walked here and there, and to and from work the last few days.

    Also, the fact that electricity didn’t go out and that there aren’t significant water outages needs to be seen as a victory, however small.

    And the idea that a bus that runs after one storm should automatically be running after another is just plain dumb. Different storms will impact the city differently, Joel. It’s called reality.

    If Connelly keeps beating this dead horse much longer (I think the basic story is valid, but his sense of personal indignation/entitlement is what is getting tiresome), his job should be the next one downsized in the local media…

  9. For the record, I think Metro fucked up worse than the city (by not providing good, up to date information). Money is not unlimited. You can’t expect this city to have a plan for a week of snow any more than you can expect it to have a hurricane plan.

    And @2, yes, I’ve been taking buses all week. And it sucks. But my response isn’t “spend millions of dollars on a comprehensive snow plan,” because that seems like a huge waste of money (and as an advocate for human and social services, Mr. X, what city programs would YOU eliminate to pay for it?)

  10. Erica misses the point of the story… which is that it’s okay, nay, REQUIRED to become pissed off when the city fails to manage streets when they’re jacked up. No one is expecting immediate response, no one is expecting pristine clean streets – but one would think that three days later, we’d be able to navigate the streets either via transit or driving – but many of us in the CD don’t have either available to us to get around, and you can believe that will affect my next vote. When City Hall can’t manage snow, how well do you think they’ll manage an earthquake? Or will everyone have to get together and talk about their feelings, and the most environmentally kind method of rubble abatement?

  11. Connelly’s Katrina reference is as gratuitous as the framing device in “Benjamin Button”, but Metro really did fuck the dog on this one.

  14. @9

    The problem is, you’re not consistent at all when it comes to where money flows in the city. What programs are you willing to eliminate for bike lanes?

  15. @9,

    Zero out South Lake Union subsidies, to start. You could pay for another 10 snowplows and to store them for the 2-10 years until they’re next needed (note the use of the word NEED), and you’d still have at least $250 million to spare.

  16. @11,

    I wouldn’t go so far to compare this event to Katrina, but Nickels giving himself and the City a “B” for their snow response does a pretty good job of evoking “Heckuva a job Brownie” to most people.

  17. Please provide the math with real numbers:

    tons of salt involved if Seattle salts once or twice a year,

    gallons in Puget Sound,

    long division to get salinity, etc.

    subtraction to show the spike, etc.

    info on why this would be harmful.

    And show your math about the notion people want the mayor to spend “millions.”

    I don’t think salt costs very much.

    And no one is saying you need to buy 25 more snow plows.

    Snow plow blades can be added to existing park dept. pick up trucks and shit, you could hire day laborers to spread salt around by hand.

    (Btw: citing studies or articles about places with continual snowfall all winter long isn’t relevant; saying an articles is about Oregon when actually it’s about Maine isn’t relevant, is dishonest or inept, etc.).

    Open minds can be convinced by real facts.

    The floor is yours.

  18. Connelly is an ass, but Nickels and the city have completely dropped the ball.

    And it’s a mystery to me, why personal vehicles, UPS trucks and delivery trucks seem to be getting around without massive problems, but Metro and trash collectors are at a standstill…

    And there are meteorologists who think we ARE going into a cycle of colder, wetter, icier weather in the Pacific NW, so maybe we SHOULD spend a little money and do some planning if that is the case.

  19. erica makes great points, but her slamming of metro seems a wee off. it seems to me, that part of the reason bus service was so bad ( lousy) in seattle was due to the extremely poor road conditions. metro is not responsible for clearing roads. There were tons of buses stuck, jackknifed, crashed, due to the chunks of ice on main roads. so if metro was running at 50% and it gets some buses stucks than that adds up. a lot of buses had to divert as well since hills were impossible to climb. people, i talked to at the bus stop were mad with the waits, not the scheduling being up to date.

    i agree it doesn’t happen often, so no, no investments should be made at the cost of human services. we survived. dont be so wimpy.

  20. Metro is messed up because it is widely assumed to serve two groups of people: A) Greenies who take the bus to feel good, but who can dig out the SUVs when they have to; and B) The poor, the homeless, the elderly, the disabled and others who have no transportation alternatives. But since (it is assumed) they don’t vote, they aren’t important.

    I’m just waiting for some stories of little old ladies who starved during the storms because they couldn’t get out to get food. I hope I’m wrong, but I won’t be surprised if that gets in the news next week. It seems like things only get moving in this town after somebody dies (last year’s Madison Park floods, the viaduct falling down…)

  23. Yes, we totally need our own Jane Byrne to swoop in on the wings of saving us from Frosty and Snow Miser, only to wither in mediocrity to the point that her successors can be recalled and named, her predecessors revered and yet she is simply a footnote.

    Attack the process, not the people. And don’t blame bus service on the city– it’s the county.

  24. “And no one is saying you need to buy 25 more snow plows.

    Snow plow blades can be added to existing park dept. pick up trucks and shit, you could hire day laborers to spread salt around by hand.

    The floor is yours.”

    Safely operating a plow-equipped vehicle isn’t as simple as clipping a plow on to the front of something and handing the driver a map and telling him to go to it. The snow has to be pushed somewhere, and that “somewhere” is either the side or middle of the road.

    Roads in Seattle tend to be narrow, so there’s not a lot of room to make the pile there, and the sides of the street are full of on-street parking. People can’t move their cars until the streets are plowed (because they don’t have chains or studs) and if they could, have no-where to move them to, since garages in Seattle were all converted to MIL apartments or storage years ago, and the driveways are too steep to park in during snow with the aforementioned fair-weather tires.

    And hiring day laborers to spread salt…okay, first you have to have a big supply of salt sitting around. Then, some way to transport the salt from storage to where it needs to be spread. Then, a bunch of day laborers standing around on the least likely day of the year who can follow directions and have a way to be transported to the areas of need. Wow, sounds simple and foolproof.

    How many plows do you think would be required to clear the streets in a “reasonable” amount of time? How much does each of your plowing solutions (be they dedicated plows or these cool “transform a pickup into a plow” kits? And which tax are you going to raise to pay for their infrequent use, storage and maintenance? In these plush economic times, I’m sure that’ll be an easy one to pass.

  25. @6 –

    For days there was no other house on my block with a shoveled sidewalk, and that’s how the whole neighborhood looked. That right there tells you how marvelous people have been to each other.

    I cleaned off my porch steps so the mail carrier wouldn’t die, but the sidewalk? No. I don’t own a snow shovel, nor do any of my neighbors.

    I did enjoy walking our almost 2-year old around the neighborhood in his sled. He couldn’t walk in the snow very well, and the stroller was a definite no-go. The only drawback was whenever we got to the 1 house in 10 with a shoveled sidewalk, we had to move into the street to get by.

  26. @6:

    Damnit man, didn’t you get the memo? Now you’ve gone and spilled the beans, thus making it even harder to drive out those Running Dog Lackeys of the Imperialist Capitalist Order!

    Expect imminent word from The Commissariat regarding your reeducation service.

  28. I’d just be happy if I could rely on the Metro for my information about the Metro right now. Their ice/snow page says one thing while a bus driver on the route in question tells me something else entirely. The page says that only the #3 is running up Queen Anne but I waited half an hour for nothing.

    And I can’t report on any starving old ladies, but I did see an especially older woman in a walker waiting for a 2 or 13 on the Counterbalance. I don’t know if anyone told her that they weren’t running, but I’d believe that she thought they were based on the car and truck traffic that’s making it up and down the hill without a problem.

  30. OK so Connelly is a bit hyperbolic. That’s not the point: the fact is that a major city (not a rural area, but a city) was not able to deal with a ten-day-long (and continuing) weather situation that essentially shut down the entire transportation network for that major city for multiple days.

    Seattle can congratulate itself for clearing the top layer of snow off of arterials and dousing them in sand, but the leftover snow/sand has turned into muddy slush or ice, depending on elevation. Remember: parts of Seattle are at sea level. Parts are at 200, 300, even 500 feet, same as the Cascade foothills. On Christmas Day, it was raining with basically wet and clear roadways in the U District, but at Northgate is was snowing, adding another 2 inches that morning onto the *existing* snow on the roads.

    Also, no one knows they are supposed to shovel their sidewalks + half of the city has no sidewalks, so pedestrian transportation was difficult (and near impossible in some areas).

    When the transportation network fails:

    1. People don’t get mail, UPS deliveries, or FedEx deliveries for days on end. (At Christmastime, that’s an extra bummer, but also things like SS checks, paychecks, bills, pharmaceuticals, and what-not are not being delivered to over 200,000 people in Western Washington this week.)

    2. People don’t work, or work as much. For those who telecommute or are salaried, fine. For those who can’t telecommute or are hourly, disaster.

    3. Christmastime sales tax revenues were much lower because retail transactions ground to a halt: as a result the city (and state) will have an ever bigger budget shortage than they had already anticipated.

    4. Only young and healthy people could get out for the past 10 days: the elderly, the handicapped, etc., could not get around at all.

    Look, with global warming, Seattle can expect hotter summers and colder, wetter winters. This means longer and longer spells of snow on the ground. In the past, one or two days of a shut-down city waiting for the snow to melt was fine. But moving forward, the city government is going to need to perform its core function: maintain the urban infrastructure so that the city can function. And this means having an effective and rational plan for dealing with week- and multiple-week-long snow–like any other city in notherly climes.

  31. @ 13 — I wondered why the 43 and 8 weren’t running as well, a few days ago. And then on my way home from work I decided to walk up Broadway, and then up John towards home. John was an iced-over clusterfuck. This is one of the main drags for both buses. Plus the 8 usually also goes up Madison for a little stretch, and the 11 (which goes up the same stretch of Madison) is also canceled.

  32. Yes, please raise my taxes because old people are too batty to get direct deposit and Christians decided to have their primary entertainment for the year in the dead of freaking winter. Raise them a lot because I love to pay for exactly that type shit.

  33. #25

    And you’re breaking the law…property owners are required to maintain public sidewalks by removing ice and snow. (of course, the city isn’t even doing that…)

    Also, if I slip on your icy sidewalk, I’m suing the shit out of you.

    Snow shovels are $9.99.

  34. @17:

    According to news reports all over the Internets, the cost of rock salt suitable for road de-icing was running about $150 per ton back in September, up from about $40 per ton last winter – assuming you could get it even for that price. Many municipalities and counties across the country that regularly pre-order large quantities of rock salt for winter road de-icing not only faced exorbitant price increases this year, but because of increased demand and decreased inventories, many were also shorted, maybe getting only 1,200 tons when they had ordered 2,000 tons, for example.

    From what I’ve read, it takes roughly 500 lbs. of rock salt to effectively de-ice one mile of two-lane road, or about four miles to the ton. So you can take the numbers above and multiply them by approximately 1,500 street miles to account for major arterials, and you get a cost estimate of around $56,000 – $60,000 for ONE round of de-icing; not a huge amount by any stretch, but again that’s based on the assumption you can purchase that much salt on short-notice, or, have that much on-hand, and it doesn’t take into account the fact that, in this case, streets would have required two, perhaps even three passes to keep clear, because of the multiple days of precipitation, and extended below-freezing temperatures.

    So, a best-guess estimate of the amount of rock salt required would be about 1,300 tons (taking into account wastage and a small reserve) at a cost to the City of about $200,000; again, not an enormous sum. But that also doesn’t factor in additional side-costs, for example to replant parking strips or other ground cover adjacent to salted roads that would be effectively defoliated once the salt gets into the soil. I’m sure there would be additional costs due to the highly corrosive effects of salt, but these are just the ones that come off the top of my head.

    I certainly can’t predict what the cumulative environmental effects of introducing 2.6 MILLION POUNDS of salt into the groundwater, streams, creeks, and freshwater lakes around town would be – but my guess is, it’s probably not good.

  35. @33:

    It may be “the law”, but my guess is the police have a lot more pressing matters at-hand right now than writing up tickets to 90% of the property owners in Seattle for failing to clear their sidewalks of snow.

  36. Confidential to Metro: lousy bus service is OK when busview is working and you can see when the bus is coming. Rather than waiting an hour or two.

    Try to have it up and running more than half the time during future storms.

  37. @24: what about some solutions instead of explaining how nothing would work?

    @25: shovels are cheap. And it’s the law.

    @16: exactly. Obviously this is nothing compared to Katrina, but being so self-congratulatory while people still can’t leave their houses is both stupid and offensive.

  38. Day 9 of zero bus service to anywhere east of 23rd. Madison Valley, Washington Park and Madison Park have been totally without transit.

  39. Check this out: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A084…

    Essentially, the State of New York is trying to get salt barred from anywhere near a reservoir (Cap Hill, West Seattle, etc.) or sensitive ecosystem (All of Seattle). They cite several cases where salt substitutes are used due to verified negative effects on the ecosystem (the Fed being one such applicant of that notion).

    They offer alternatives, of course, all of which were previously more expensive than salt, but are seeming to back down to prices that are comparable or better.

  40. Also, Streetcar is back, but no service up Union from metro.

    I never imagined SDOT would get things back on track faster than Metro, but here we are with a functioning Streetcar (you’re welcome, Fred Hutch) and no bus service to Madrona.

    Maybe King County should do roads and SDOT do transit?

  41. Once again, Erica Barnett shows she has a problem with reading comprehension. Either that, or she’s a lying sack of shit. You choose:

    1) My bus wasn’t running. Therefore, the city, or county, or somebody, should spend millions on a plan in case it snows like this again.

    No, Erica. Joel did not talk about himself or his bus route in this column. Quit lying.

    2) EXCLAMATION POINTS COUNT TOWARD MY WORD COUNT!!!

    Wow. Three extra exclamation points, and Barnett goes into a tizzy. This from the same person who went into a psychotic rant over some mother giving her kid a ride in the snow.

    3) This snowstorm is EXACTLY like Katrina, and Nickels is EXACTLY like Bush. Think about it.

    No, Erica, what Joel Connelly is doing is using an analogy. Perhaps your teachers attempted to teach you about that back in high school.

  42. ECB, I know a guy in the U District who takes the bus everywhere. He has one leg and had to get around with crutches this week. I’ll leave my email if you’d like and we can get in touch. You can then meet the guy and tell him to his face what a great job has been done by the city. Thanks.

  43. NEWS FLASH: Metro is run by KING COUNTY.

    Not the City of Seattle.

    Want results? FIRE THE ENTIRE COUNTY COUNCIL FOR NOT DOING THEIR JOBS!

  44. @43, Metro is blaming City of Seattle for poor bus service telling me today that the streets are not plowed and busses can not make most of their regular routes.

  46. The Connelly hate fetish is getting a bit tiresome. From the Stranger, I would prefer a little more outrage over Nickels’ “Grade B” comment, and Jan Drago’s “Goodie for me” comment about how great Seattle’s streets are from behind the wheel of her 4WD.
    I on the other hand have no idea how I am going to pay my bills in two weeks as I’ve had to miss work due to the road conditions, not to mention sustaining nearly $500 of damage to my car yesterday (Oh, Merry Christmas) because I had to drive my disabled 83 year-old dad home. He lives 3 miles away and was unable to get a cab- none were available or willing to drive in our area of N Seattle.
    Should he have taken Metro, Erica? Or, maybe I should have loaned him my bike.

  47. An 8.5 earthquake in Elliott Bay is never, ever going to happen. I’m serious. Now a 6.1 earthquake in Lake Washington? We’re overdue, and we’re fucked if (when) it happens.

  48. 1. I didn’t find the adverse weather page for Metro hard to find. Just go to the home page, and it sticks out in Purple for pete’s sake. If Joel Connelly had read that page, he would have known his bus wasn’t running.

    2. Running a private vehicle, or a FedEx truck up a hill is a lot different than running a bus full of human beings, any one of which may sue the hell out of you if they get a scratch, up and down hills. And I’m one of the disabled inconvenienced by lack of buses. My scooter went better on ice than it did on packed snow, I couldn’t get around the last several days because the walks weren’t cleared. The merchants would clear the front of their buildings, but the sides were no-man’s land, not cleared and not passable. A lot of the denizens of my building were stuck at home when our wheelchairs/scooters wouldn’t go thru the slush.

    3. So maybe we should have a snow plan. I’m not for spending a lot of dollars for a once in 20 years event, but if we start getting more snow, then we should. It may pay us to consider transit options that could get up steep hills in the snow. Cog railways, cable cars, and the counterbalance come to mind. It would be nice to get to the library while my books are only a week or two overdue.

  50. Much of Seattle is on the combined sewer system, including all of downtown. That is, stormwater mixes in the sewer system and goes to West point for treatment, before it goes to Puget Sound. Salting these areas should have a negligible effect on Puget Sound. Some areas drain directly to fresh water rivers and creeks and would be affected more severely.

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