Where's Jane Byrne?
So, unlike my last post, my daughter did have the opportunity to experience this snow first hand. She's still too young to be able to remember it later in life.
Now the bitchy part:
The snow stopped falling early afternoon yesterday.
Despite the fact that the City had every truck they could muster and put a blade on out plowing, at 9am (20 hours after the snow stopped), our street (and most side streets in Austin, Pilsen, and other similar low SES neighbourhoods) was still not plowed.
Is this because the plow that came through our neighbourhood (with it's blade up) got hung up on the traffic circle Streets and San installed years ago? (Elliott has a picture that's getting emailed to WBEZ)
Or is it related to the mess that's currently the posturing point for all the Mayoral candidates -- Lake Shore Drive?
Apparently it took until 5am today to clear all the cars that were stuck (and abandoned) on LSD.
I have some issues with this.
1) Does the city really need all 400 of the blade-equipped trucks to remove 900 cars from LSD? That's about 2.25 cars per truck. Assuming that these trucks are even equipped for towing passenger cars.
2) Why are we wasting time rescuing cars? If there's nobody trapped inside them, leave them there. If they're are people trapped in them, rescue the people, not the cars.
3) Why were there cars stuck on LSD anyway? Why didn't the City close LSD before the traffic got horrendous?
The current talk from the appropriate City official is that they made the correct choice on not closing LSD. Without the politics of how the LSD rescue screwed the rest of the City, let's look at some governance. The question is, "should the City have closed LSD before (early) rush hour on Tuesday?"
In response I ask the following:
Were lives lost or endangered by the traffic jam on LSD on Tuesday?
Was this traffic jam caused by one or more accidents blocking the roadway?
Did the weather conditions, including but not limited to the low visibility the whole city experienced, and/or the spray from Lake Michigan that LSD always experiences in high wind, contribute to these accidents?
Did the City expect, or could the City be reasonably expected to predict, these weather conditions, and their effect on traffic?
I think it's obvious the answer to the first 3 questions is "yes."
IANAL:
If the answer to the fourth question is "yes", then the City is (criminally) negligent.
If the answer is "no", then the City is pathologically idiotic, and the reasonable expectations of it have fallen to a(n unfortunately predicable) low.
In Chicago the mismanagement of snow, traffic, and transit issues has affected the outcome of municipal elections. It is considered a major contributing factor to Jane Byrne replacing Mike Bilandic in 1979. Of course, the City may have forgotten this in it's negligence/idiocy.
Now the bitchy part:
The snow stopped falling early afternoon yesterday.
Despite the fact that the City had every truck they could muster and put a blade on out plowing, at 9am (20 hours after the snow stopped), our street (and most side streets in Austin, Pilsen, and other similar low SES neighbourhoods) was still not plowed.
Is this because the plow that came through our neighbourhood (with it's blade up) got hung up on the traffic circle Streets and San installed years ago? (Elliott has a picture that's getting emailed to WBEZ)
Or is it related to the mess that's currently the posturing point for all the Mayoral candidates -- Lake Shore Drive?
Apparently it took until 5am today to clear all the cars that were stuck (and abandoned) on LSD.
I have some issues with this.
1) Does the city really need all 400 of the blade-equipped trucks to remove 900 cars from LSD? That's about 2.25 cars per truck. Assuming that these trucks are even equipped for towing passenger cars.
2) Why are we wasting time rescuing cars? If there's nobody trapped inside them, leave them there. If they're are people trapped in them, rescue the people, not the cars.
3) Why were there cars stuck on LSD anyway? Why didn't the City close LSD before the traffic got horrendous?
The current talk from the appropriate City official is that they made the correct choice on not closing LSD. Without the politics of how the LSD rescue screwed the rest of the City, let's look at some governance. The question is, "should the City have closed LSD before (early) rush hour on Tuesday?"
In response I ask the following:
Were lives lost or endangered by the traffic jam on LSD on Tuesday?
Was this traffic jam caused by one or more accidents blocking the roadway?
Did the weather conditions, including but not limited to the low visibility the whole city experienced, and/or the spray from Lake Michigan that LSD always experiences in high wind, contribute to these accidents?
Did the City expect, or could the City be reasonably expected to predict, these weather conditions, and their effect on traffic?
I think it's obvious the answer to the first 3 questions is "yes."
IANAL:
If the answer to the fourth question is "yes", then the City is (criminally) negligent.
If the answer is "no", then the City is pathologically idiotic, and the reasonable expectations of it have fallen to a(n unfortunately predicable) low.
In Chicago the mismanagement of snow, traffic, and transit issues has affected the outcome of municipal elections. It is considered a major contributing factor to Jane Byrne replacing Mike Bilandic in 1979. Of course, the City may have forgotten this in it's negligence/idiocy.