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Portland blows with snow

Ryan Henson
The Commuter

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Snow day traffic

Ryan Henson

The Commuter

Before the plane’s wheels even smacked on the runway, I could see there had been a snowstorm in Portland, and I knew I needed to call my ride and get his new ETA.

“It’ll be an hour plus,” he said, explaining that he was gridlocked on Burnside somewhere and that the entire highway system – going in and out of Portland – was completely paralyzed.

“How much did it snow,” I asked.

“About four inches,” he said.

On that night, Dec. 29, it took three hours for my friend to get to the airport. It took another six to get home to Corvallis. The Portland bus system and the MAX were brought to a near halt.

Jack-knifed tractor-trailer trucks dotted the highways, over 1,000 vehicles were abandoned in the snow and KPTV Portland reported that dispatchers received 291 reports of car crashes statewide. Those motorists who didn’t stall, wreck or run out of

gas, moved along at a snail’s pace – stuck in their cars for hours and hours and hours.

My trip home wasn’t bad at all, actually it was kind of humorous. I dozed in the backseat of my friend’s car. I ate a maple bar from Voodoo Doughnut (It had bacon!) and I remedied my boredom by laughing maniacally and creating finger paintings in the fogged-up window .

Other motorists didn’t have such a whimsical experience, however, and called KEX 1190 to share their tales of woe. Callers spoke of being stuck in traffic for hours with hungry, crying infants. Others called to recount sliding accidents and close collisions.

Jeepers.

All of this because of four inches of snow? Didn’t almost this exact same thing happen last year? Why does this kind of chaos ensue when it snows in Portland? Is there a single person or government entity we can blame for this? Or, is it the collective winter-weather incompetence of thousands of motorists? City officials blame motorists for panicking. Motorists blame city officials for not being prepared.

“Everybody wants to blame government for not doing something. I don’t know how we could have done something different,” Oregon Department of Transportation spokesman Dave Thompson told the Oregonian.

Is one respect Thompson is correct. People shouldn’t put all the blame on government. If motorists were prepared and had some tire chains in their car somewhere, maybe they wouldn’t go to pieces at the sight of snow. Maybe they all wouldn’t jump into their vehicles at the same time trying to beat the icy conditions. It’s everyone’s fault.

But, it’s still the government’s job to somehow remedy the situation. Here are some suggestions.

Provide more information faster:

After last year’s storm, according to an article in the Oregonian, Mayor Sam Adams has already begun working on this idea. The Web site publicalerts.org , when finished, will provide users with information from different weather agencies. Adams also has “requested the technology” to tweet motorists’ cell phones and e-mail accounts .When

these things are fully operational and people are notified early and frequently about hazardous conditions, they will be less likely to panic and will partially solve the problem.

Salt the roads:

If people knew the roads would be salted, they might wait around for the snow and ice to be cleared before they headed out.

I know the arguments against salting: Rock salt is questionable to the environment (mostly to bodies of water) and messes up the paint on your car. Let me say this: How good for the environment is the exhaust of thousands of trapped automobiles? How good for your car is it to slide into another car?

Besides, in an article by the Seattle Times, Diane Spector, a water-resources planner for Wenck Associates, which studied snow clearance for some cities in the Midwest, said that “the occasional application of salt is probably not going to have a lasting effect (on the environment).”

Get more plows:

I know the argument against obtaining more plows: In the wake of the storm that struck Portland in 2008, Cheryl Kuck, City Office of Transportation spokeswoman, in another article in the Oregonian, questioned whether Portlanders would want the city to spend funds on more snowplows that in most winters would just sit there. I say this: how much does it cost to remove thousands of abandoned cars from the highways? How much does the city lose in revenue when it is nearly shut down? How can we put a price on safety?

Offer more roadside assistance:

My friends and I sat on I-205 south for five hours. This wasn’t because of an accident. This was because a lane was closed for construction and traffic was bottlenecked. In frustration, motorists drove down the shoulder and made the whole situation worse. If someone had been there to direct traffic, telling motorists when to stop or go,

I’m certain the process would have been speeded up significantly. The whole thing seemed to have a martial law feel to it and more assistance was definitely needed.

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