Shouldn't De-icer have been used today? (Colorado Springs: how much, contractor, campers)

[Mire]

I love how everyone who has never done this is always an expert.

Your answer... fails to factor in something very important. Try again.

Here's a hint. What happens to snow when it melts? And then what does it do?

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Mire

I love how everyone who has never done this is always an expert.

Your answer... fails to factor in something very important. Try again.

Here's a hint. What happens to snow when it melts? And then what does it do?

It depends. If it stops precipitating and gets dry, it evaporates.

[CharlotteRJ]

Originally Posted by Mire

There's a few reasons. Ice Slicer is used on arterials such as Academy (I can't remember offhand what the others were which were responsibility of Streets Division), but not on most roads, and there are a few reasons for this.
Cost does factor into it, but it's the reason there aren't a couple more roads which get Ice Slicer; that's not the reason they don't use it on all the roads.
Take all the major roads in Colorado Springs. Imagine they got a couple inches of snow. Now imagine they all simultaneously got treated with Ice Slicer and that snow melted. What would the end result of that look like?

Probably the same thing that would happen in Madison, WI, a metro area of comparable size, when it snows several inches and they salt and sand every street in town. Or in Milwaukee. Or in Minneapolis. Or where I lived in Maryland and they salted when we got two feet of snow at once. Or in any other metro area in the US that uses salt and ice melt to clear their roads in the winter, which happens to be, oh, quite a few.

You don't melt all of the snow off the roads. You push it off to the side, then drop salt behind it to melt what's left.

In places where it snows a lot and doesn't melt right away, like, say, the entire upper Midwest, the plow drivers shove the snow further off the road, and then they salt the roads behind. If you don't shove the snow far enough, subsequent snow falls cannot be removed from the road. That much anybody with eyes can see, but I have a good friend who drives plow for MN-DOT, and she's described their training at length.

[CharlotteRJ]

Originally Posted by Mire

False

Oh? You do understand that they use the concept of freezing point depression, and thus there IS still a freezing point?

If you don't believe me, you can google it. The second link I found was from Michigan DOT. I'm sure they don't know anything about road deicing, though.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/ch2-deice_51438_7.pdf for some random examples.

Several random google searches show that Ice Slicer, which you've referenced, has a minimum effective temperature.

[Mire]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

It depends. If it stops precipitating and gets dry, it evaporates.

A sound idea... if it suddenly gets dry and into the 60s and stays that way. Let's be real... not gonna happen that way. Granted, it might get there by the end of the week, but not the day after it snows.
The variety in the weather is something I appreciate greatly about Colorado. Unlike Mississippi, where it was hot and muggy (rain or shine), or else it was hurricane season.
Anyhow, that aside, you might notice that the plows don't go curb-to-curb.... so there's still going to be snow at the curb and a little ways out. Incidentally, where are your storm drains located?
So snow becomes water, and water will flow along the path of least resistance - which isn't going to be through the remaining snow and into storm drains clogged with snow and ice. Now picture it happening on all these city streets, all at once. What could possibly go wrong?
Plus, ice slicer isn't a skid prevention agent, which is what you want on roads such as Cheyenne Mountain and others.

Originally Posted by CharlotteRJ

Oh? You do understand that they use the concept of freezing point depression, and thus there IS still a freezing point?

If you don't believe me, you can google it. The second link I found was from Michigan DOT. I'm sure they don't know anything about road deicing, though.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/ch2-deice_51438_7.pdf for some random examples.

Several random google searches show that Ice Slicer, which you've referenced, has a minimum effective temperature.

Oh, no... "Miss Google Fu" comes into play. The stuff can clear roads in Alaska, but LOOK OUT FOR THE COLORADO FRONT RANGE!
So, may I ask, in your crusade of several random Google searches, would you care to tell me what that temperature is, what the relation of relative humidity is to that effective temperature, and perhaps which Ice Slicer products your searches made reference to? Because, you know, Ice Slicer is a manufacturer which makes several products.

[CharlotteRJ]

I didn't say that it's not effective on the front range, but your claim that there's no minimum is false, and that's just basic chemistry.

You've also failed to explain why other cities are able to plow and salt and why Colorado Springs cannot.

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Mire

A sound idea... if it suddenly gets dry and into the 60s and stays that way. Let's be real... not gonna happen that way. Granted, it might get there by the end of the week, but not the day after it snows.
The variety in the weather is something I appreciate greatly about Colorado. Unlike Mississippi, where it was hot and muggy (rain or shine), or else it was hurricane season.
Anyhow, that aside, you might notice that the plows don't go curb-to-curb.... so there's still going to be snow at the curb and a little ways out. Incidentally, where are your storm drains located?
So snow becomes water, and water will flow along the path of least resistance - which isn't going to be through the remaining snow and into storm drains clogged with snow and ice. Now picture it happening on all these city streets, all at once. What could possibly go wrong?
Plus, ice slicer isn't a skid prevention agent, which is what you want on roads such as Cheyenne Mountain and others.



Oh, no... "Miss Google Fu" comes into play. The stuff can clear roads in Alaska, but LOOK OUT FOR THE COLORADO FRONT RANGE!
So, may I ask, in your crusade of several random Google searches, would you care to tell me what that temperature is, what the relation of relative humidity is to that effective temperature, and perhaps which Ice Slicer products your searches made reference to? Because, you know, Ice Slicer is a manufacturer which makes several products.

LOL! Look... I lived in Iowa for 8 years before here, and from both there and here I can tell you...that there is a phenomenon where even if the temps don't get above freezing, but it's really dry, the roads dry out. The water does not simply melt and refreeze. I mean it can, but not day after day. And it does NOT have to get into the 60's. That's silly. The 30's-40's we've had, have been enough to dry up the roads pretty quick.

Also, it can get really freaking warm the day after a snow here. We do have some weird schizo weather sometimes.

I maintain that more water evaps up into the air, and is carried off, than goes into our drainage here in the days following a snow. That's not something I can back up with scientific articles and google references. That's an observation. It's nowhere near the way it is after one of our monsoon showers where we have real drainage issues. And of course there is the effect of sublimation at work as well.

If we got a LOT of snow it might be an issue. But that's gonna have to be more than the Springs usually does. I don't see a benefit in leaving the snow in solid form on the roads in the hopes of preventing snowmelt related flooding issues. The snow/ice itself is far more hazardous.

[CharlotteRJ]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

LOL! Look... I lived in Iowa for 8 years before here, and from both there and here I can tell you...that there is a phenomenon where even if the temps don't get above freezing, but it's really dry, the roads dry out. The water does not simply melt and refreeze. I mean it can, but not day after day. And it does NOT have to get into the 60's. That's silly. The 30's-40's we've had, have been enough to dry up the roads pretty quick.

Also, it can get really freaking warm the day after a snow here. We do have some weird schizo weather sometimes.

I maintain that more water evaps up into the air, and is carried off, than goes into our drainage here in the days following a snow. That's not something I can back up with scientific articles and google references. That's an observation. It's nowhere near the way it is after one of our monsoon showers where we have real drainage issues. And of course there is the effect of sublimation at work as well.

If we got a LOT of snow it might be an issue. But that's gonna have to be more than the Springs usually does. I don't see a benefit in leaving the snow in solid form on the roads in the hopes of preventing snowmelt related flooding issues. The snow/ice itself is far more hazardous.

You're thinking about sublimation. It's the condition where a substance changes directly from the solid phase to the gas phase, without being a liquid. It's much more common here because of our lower humidity and windy conditions. The propensity for sunny days right after a storm speed it up.

[ryanek9freak]

Originally Posted by Mire

The city does see it coming. The problem is that the city is run by a bunch of penny pickers who only react to being embarrassed (e.g., the video of cars sliding down S. Carefree back in the Winter of 2010 - 2011.
Very few roads in Co. Springs get treated with ice slicer... Academy does, Powers does (which is done by El Paso County), but most get anti-skid (87% sand, 13% solar salt).
Snow removal crews operate in two shifts, and they don't get called up in advance - once again, penny pinching. With as many false alarms over snow as you see in Co. Springs, coupled with the penny pinching, it's always going to be a reactive process, rather than a proactive one.
Two zones in Co. Springs were being given to private contractors.. Zone 5 was one of them, and I'm not sure what the others were. The contractors, who've been bucking to take over snow removal from the city for some time, could very well deploy their plows in advance in order to make an impression... however, they also have to be able to do it cheaper than Streets Division (Streets Division runs snow removal operations, while personnel will be tasked from all other departments as qualified and needed... temps/agency staffers, utilities, fleet maintenance, etc.). The biggest thing working against the contractors vs. the city is that the city doesn't pay fuel tax, whereas the contractors do.
Don't like it? Well, the city wouldn't be so cheap if the residents weren't. Plain and simple. Sure, Streets Division could deploy plows ahead of time, they could proactively call in personnel, and the general public in Co. Springs probably would be grateful... until the moment they realize all that means increased operating costs. Then they'll turn around and whine about that. FFS, Streets Division had to buy steel rims for their trucks to replace the aluminum rims which came with them for fear that the general public would see the polished aluminum rims as being "fancy" and costly... how the hell do you think they're going to react when they find out, "well, golly... shucks... there's increased costs for increased time accrued by personnel"?
You reap what you sow.

This guy hit the nail on the head. I used to work for the city and everything he said is true. This city is so "conservative" that nothing can get done, yet everyone wants the best a municipality can provide.

Denver, a city roughly the same size as ours, has a $5 million dollar snow removal budget, ours is a little more than $1 million, and we have to do the same job,with less trucks and drivers.

Oh, and FWIW, all hell would have to break loose before fleet maintenance people were driving plow trucks, as city fleet no longer exists, they've been outsourced to a private contractor, all to save the mayor from having to worry about PERA liabilities.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by CharlotteRJ

I didn't say that it's not effective on the front range, but your claim that there's no minimum is false, and that's just basic chemistry.

You've also failed to explain why other cities are able to plow and salt and why Colorado Springs cannot.

Exactly. Too many people in COS like to think there is something so unique about this place. Trust me, not much here is that unique.