I think the whole approach taken by the city is wrong. The policy never should have taken precedence over the goal. Did they even have a goal? Instead of the city working to make the roads passable, they just wasted a week pointlessly bouncing rubber tipped plows over the ice. Salt shouldn't be the standard policy or banned, but should be a tool for achieving the goal of making this city livable during anything more than a single day of snow.
The real problem here is that the city doesn't operate on goals but policy, the facts on the ground be damned!

tortue thinks recycling is stupid. But he is more of an environmentalist than most American's. He doesn't drive, ever!

tortue, why are you "no environmentalist?" do you have plans to live on mars if this continue to devolve here? educate yourself. what works in a world with hundreds of millions of people does not necessarily work in a world with tens of billions of people.

Yikes, Maria - sorry to hear about your bruise & that insane driver. (and as if bus riders already didn't have things bad enough in the snow!!) I took a tumble last week (same night as the drive-from-hell on those ruts) outside Ballard Market.

That definitely was the day that turned it -- I lost patience & was so done w/the snow. I'd been walking super slow, ultra cautiously back to the car (after sleeping overnight on a floor at work to minimize driving, carrying extra clothes & food around like a Girl Scout since day#1 of snow), and still fell b/c the street was just too slippery. That pretty much ruined Christmas Eve & Day. And it's not helping New Year's, either.

Let's hope it's good long while before we see more lowland snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alonzo, I was specifically speaking about the 1970ss and early 80s era junkers rolling around that some states in the US give special exemption to clean air laws. Then again, the owners are probably paying for them in the crappy gas mileage. It doesn't bother me really, as I'm no environmentalist.

Anyhow, just saying the whole "zomg salt!@# not to my car". Get over it, your car gets you from point A to point B, its not for looks. The era of see-the-usa-in-your-chevorlet is over, people need to stop with the love affair with the automobile.

Alonza, they won't be satisfied until you get rid of both. Then they'll come for your plastci bags. Then they'll come for your take-out containers.

I know what the mayor is going after next: your toilet paper. Soon to be as illegal as heroin, you will be required to wash and re-use the Charmin.

But our mayor sure is green, gotta love that!

@angrinon - well, should I get rid of my 2005 Subaru or 2008 Mazda to appease you?

@ ding and Candace - good points, thanks.

folks afraid of their undercarriage and salt....skip two grande mocha's and get a beary of a deal carwash at brown bear. problem solved. trust me, i grew up w/salt during the winters and never had an undercarriage rot out when kept clean. heck skip brown bear and take you hose and hose off the undercarriage yourself! and for you environmentalists, do it on your lawn!

The mayor is scrambling to save what's left of his political future. "Salt? No!" "Salt? Yes!" Salting snowy roads once every 6-10 years is not going to ruin anybody's car undercarriage. This is all about the salmon and "being green". Nickels has been working hard to claim the mantle of greenest mayor in America. Unfortunately, in our current economy, preventing people from being able to leave their homes for an entire week during Christmas season is just politically stupid.

Undercarriage of the cars? Oh come on. Get rid of your 1970s land boat, those old junkers cant be good for the environment.

We don't need to be like California where the highways still look like an episode of CHiPs.

Make sure they dump a big load of salt in front of Sustainable Ballard's office, will ya?

Suede boots in the snow?

I once spent a 4 day weekend in Denver in a foot of snow when the high for the week was 1. I ruined a delightfully lovely and VERY expensive pair of suede boots by walking in the salt on the streets but did manage to avoid a cantaloupe sized bruise on my hip like the one I got falling on Seneca.

I would also like to mention here the MORON who decided, as he came down the hill to fast, that it was better to kill people waiting for a bus on 3rd and Seneca than it was to damage his car by hitting a car stopped at the light. He purposely drove over the sidewalk corner and down the sidewalk scattering us as we ran to avoid being killed. I hope he had a hard time explaining the large dent in his driver door from a young man who gave it a kick with what had to be steel toed boots. He actually flipped us off.

haha wow i know who this is. mrs. lover i need two right side passanger and rear door panels for my 2000 tahoe. will trade guinneys and mice for pair or individual panels. let me know. ITS 50

The whole argument is a tad bizarre really. Cities with significantly more snow that Seattle manage to keep buses and trains and what not running reasonably on time. Let’s see……we have a blinder wearing, green mayor so instead of voting him out we all buy SUVs. Sure, that’s good logic.

Who voted for this guy anyway? I was living out of state when he was elected so did not see his campaign. Did he really convince voters he could have us all living in some green utopia on Puget Sound where granny would live to be 130 breathing smoke free air and ride her bicycle to the senior center or was his opponent a Nazi and he just became the default?

50,

Devil Worship and Witchcraft are not things to joke about, you will pay a heavy price for this juvenile behavior.

I bet payback came early... in the form of a scraped up Sport Utility Vehicle you happen to own.

Love,

Queen/Breeder/Master of all Rodents (guineas, rats, mice and ferrets only)

666 NICHOLS

OH MY UNDERCARRIAGE!

Or if salt was applied only every 10 years or so? They did say they "emergency situations". Snow rarely turns into an emergency situation 'round these parts.

how much would salting damage your car if only applied once a year?

OK, but people in cities where salt is used are also aware of the damage it does to the undercarriage of their cars. Just saying....

For those of us who keep our cars for 10-15 years, use of salt could take a toll.

Wow, Greg Nickels learned what most other mayors of cities north of the 45th parallel already knew.

In other large cities, mayors typically don't get re-elected because of stupidity like his.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Anthony_Bi...

Uh oh, the greenies are going to have a fit.

Candice, people already are. It's a bit dangerous right now.

I've certainly noticed the lack of street lines. That makes the Aurora bridge pretty scary to drive at night. The West Seattle Bridge is the same. Yikes.

ding: speaking of things that have been sheared off... have you drivin across the Aurora bridge since all this?! There's no lines separating the center and right hand lanes. People are gonna start driving down the middle of this now huge lane just like they do up and down QA Ave.

i am wondering when they decided to use the plows to clear instead of pack the ice.

on 12/23 i drove 45th in wallingford and it was like off roading it was so rough. on 12/26 it was clear and you could tell it had been plowed. massive chunks of the packed ice were now piled in the center lane. on the 29th as the snow had melted even more, the yellow bump were mixed in and you could see they had been sheared off.

it's about time

exactly what I was thinking

Thank God!