Not living in Seattle proper, I didn’t give this much thought.  I went to Seattle Saturday night, and in a front wheel drive car without chains, I was able to get around just fine using some common sense driving skills, like slow down, no sudden starts, brake gradually etc.  Sure, some of the hills were closed, but we did managed to go up Cherry between 3rd and 4th successfully (it was a one way street going up so we had no choice, really), then down Columbia from 4th back to 3rd.

The roads were awful, and the snow was coming down hard, Yet we made it home to the foothills without issue.  The freeway was moderately scary.  But not impassable.

But apparently there is a lurking issue here that I was unaware of, and that is Seattle’s strategy on snow control.  They are deliberately allowing the snow to pack the roads, and they are not using the time test combinations of salt and deicer to clear the most dangerous areas.  Just some sand for the high traffic areas and occasional deicer.  And behind it is Seattle’s legendary Eco-Nit Wit mentality.

It starts with this article at the Seattle Times:

Seattle refuses to use salt; roads “snow packed” by design:  Seattle’s strategy for clearing roads relies on sand and de-icer, not salt, which is a more effective method of melting ice and snow.

To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

So….not actually plowed?

“We’re trying to create a hard-packed surface,” said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. “It doesn’t look like anything you’d find in Chicago or New York.”

The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”

Right, because the Puget sound which is made up of salt water might not like being salty… And this is just the complaint about salt.  This is not to suggest that the chemical deicers might have environmental risks, which they surely do.  This all because we don’t like salt getting into our salt water.

By ruling out salt and some of the chemicals routinely used by snowbound cities, Seattle has embraced a less-effective strategy for clearing roads, namely sand sprinkled on top of snowpack along major arterials, and a chemical de-icer that is effective when temperatures are below 32 degrees.

Don’t forget the kinder gentler snow plows…

Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn’t scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.

Now, they claim the plan leaves the city safe for “all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains” but they seem to forgotten a fairly important road user….the police.

That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can’t: melt it.

The city’s patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.”The occasional application of salt is probably not going to have a lasting effect” on the environment, Spector said. But she cautioned it’s highly dependent on where it’s used, how often and how much is applied.

In this, Seattle stands alone….

Seattle’s stand against using salt is not shared by the state Department of Transportation, which has battled the latest storms in Western Washington with de-icer, 5,800 tons of salt and 11,500 cubic yards of salt and sand mix, said spokesman Travis Phelps.

Many cities are moving away from sand because it clogs the sewers, runs into waterways, creates air pollution and costs more to clean up.

Its main attraction is that it typically costs less than one-fifth the price of salt, according to Spector.

Aha!  Cha Ching!

“It’s tough going. I won’t argue with you on that,” he said. But here in Seattle, “we’re sensitive about everything we do that impacts the environment.”

 Like all that sand which will be runoff and increase the Sound’s silt levels? 

Well at least the silt will not be excessively salty…

Now, over at Horses Ass, Goldy finds one positive element, one which bears notice:

No doubt our city’s salt-free road clearing policy is an inconvenience to folks like me without four-wheel drive, but there is a side benefit that every car owner enjoys… our cars last longer out here.  A helluva lot longer.

My first car was a 1964 Mercury Comet, which I acquired shortly after moving here in 1992, and it sure wasn’t the oddity it would have been back in Philadelphia or New York, where road salt would have long ago digested its parts into a pile of rust. 

I have seen cars from the midwest where snow and salt take their toll year after year, and he is right.  But since we do not do this yearly for months on end, I wonder if the risk is really a real and present danger.

The news is not all bad for Seattle, they got a nice award over this:

Enviro-Nitwits of the day

Seattle’s no-salt policy is endangering lives. It’s just the latest example of enviro-nitwit-ism from greenies in the Puget Sound, who would rather force commuters to risk accidents than “pollute” salty sea water with more salt.

…

End result of this moron policy?

“Sunday was full of car crashes, even after several pleas from State Patrol and local police to stay off the roads.

The State Patrol responded to 157 collisions Sunday in King County. …

Between noon and midnight on Saturday, the State Patrol responded to 246 collisions … in King County.” “Snow: Sunday Traffic accidents by the numbers”

Maybe we can talk Ken Schram into giving Seattle (another) Schrammie….

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