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Old 02-01-2014, 03:31 PM
 
3,836 posts, read 5,735,587 times
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Another article:

Atlanta’s Snowjam Disaster: How Much Was Sprawl to Blame? | Streetsblog Capitol Hill


"But the problem wasn’t just a matter of insufficient snowplows or poorly timed school dismissals. It lay, in part, with a transportation system overly dependent on highways to connect a sprawling region, where jobs and schools are spread thinly around an enormous area, and most people have no choice but to get in a car if they want to get anywhere."


and a valuable word of warning:

"Snow is rare in Atlanta, and winter storms aren’t the main reason the region should rethink its transportation and land use patterns. But a disruptive event like this should be a wake-up call. Maybe next time it won’t be a snow problem at all, but some other event that plunges the freeways into chaos. The lesson of the snowjam is that too much reliance on freeways can produce some unexpected and scary outcomes, if suddenly those freeways aren’t performing the way they should."

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Old 02-01-2014, 03:32 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,956 posts, read 59,942,524 times
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Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
No - they don't. 18hour long artery lock and complete paralysis does not happen often - can't even recall such and even and certainly not for a mere 2 inches of snow.
and ice. You keep forgetting the ice part.

Oh, one other thing, tires running on snow heat that snow up a bit and it then refreezes into..........ice.
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Old 02-01-2014, 03:42 PM
 
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Atlanta Apartments for Rent and Atlanta Rentals - Walk Score

Atlanta's walk score is 46 (Car Dependent) . . . no options. once the arteries shut down - people were utterly helpless.

Boom. This is what car dependency gets you.
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Old 02-01-2014, 03:44 PM
 
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Atlanta Apartments for Rent and Atlanta Rentals - Walk Score

Atlanta's transit score is a miserable 43 (Some transit - a few nearby public transportation options) It's bikescore is also 43.

In other words - no redundancy, no resiliency. One minor event and the whole system collapsed.
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Old 02-01-2014, 03:45 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
Atlanta Apartments for Rent and Atlanta Rentals - Walk Score

Atlanta's walk score is 46 (Car Dependent) . . . no options. once the arteries shut down - people were utterly helpless.

Boom. This is what car dependency gets you.
With ICE the walkability score of any city turns to zero. Without snow plows and salt roads freeze up and buses don't move. Have you ever lived in a city that deals with snow and ICE regularly? No amount of grid is going to help when cars, truck, and buses are jack knifed on major streets if you don't have salt trucks.
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Old 02-01-2014, 03:48 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
Atlanta Apartments for Rent and Atlanta Rentals - Walk Score

Atlanta's transit score is a miserable 43 (Some transit - a few nearby public transportation options) It's bikescore is also 43.

In other words - no redundancy, no resiliency. One minor event and the whole system collapsed.
A half inch of ice shuts everything down...cars, trucks, buses, trains...it all stops. Subways may run but even they get shut down above ground by ice.

Maybe your point should be that every city should have a clear cut disaster plan for that rare disaster that kills all motion...which is what a bad ice storm does.

Then throw in a power outage to make it really interesting.
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Old 02-01-2014, 04:13 PM
 
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You guys keep saying this happens all the time - and yet, it doesn't and not a single person has posted an example where such a trivial weather event (2 inches of snow) shut down a massive metropolitan area for 24 hours.

It really underscores what an incredibly fragile system we've built. A few little things go wrong and the entire system seizes. The next time it happens no one should claim "we didn't see it coming".

This is the big yellow card - now, there is no more excuses. The next event that shuts the city down will be done with the full awareness of the city's vulnerabilities and the complete unwillingness to do what is necessary to fix it.
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Old 02-01-2014, 04:26 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,956 posts, read 59,942,524 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
You guys keep saying this happens all the time - and yet, it doesn't and not a single person has posted an example where such a trivial weather event (2 inches of snow) shut down a massive metropolitan area for 24 hours.

It really underscores what an incredibly fragile system we've built. A few little things go wrong and the entire system seizes. The next time it happens no one should claim "we didn't see it coming".

This is the big yellow card - now, there is no more excuses. The next event that shuts the city down will be done with the full awareness of the city's vulnerabilities and the complete unwillingness to do what is necessary to fix it.
Ok, so Atlanta invests, let's say , $75M in equipment and then brings in, oh, 100000 tons of salt every year and they don't get used for, say, 5 years. The local officials will have some heavy duty explaining to do.

It's clear that you really don't know what goes into disaster planning. You plan for the most likely scenario, one that happens most often. Except for flooding, not one that happens every 10, or 20 or 100 years (which is the flooding number).

You've been given examples, I gave you a few. The federal government shuts down at 2 inches. The Metro system stops running above ground at 4.
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Old 02-01-2014, 04:31 PM
 
3,695 posts, read 4,964,719 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
You guys keep saying this happens all the time - and yet, it doesn't and not a single person has posted an example where such a trivial weather event (2 inches of snow) shut down a massive metropolitan area for 24 hours.

It really underscores what an incredibly fragile system we've built. A few little things go wrong and the entire system seizes. The next time it happens no one should claim "we didn't see it coming".

This is the big yellow card - now, there is no more excuses. The next event that shuts the city down will be done with the full awareness of the city's vulnerabilities and the complete unwillingness to do what is necessary to fix it.
The city of Chicago has 287 snow trucks along with 26 smaller trucks and that doesn't count IDOT who's sole job is handling the expressway system. Atlanta has 30-40 trucks and sand trucks at that. They are deployed at the first signs of snow. The city also decides if schools will close the night before the big storm and not after it so that you don't have children stuck at school. Also in major weather events the City urges people to stay home if they can.

Atlanta has almost ten times fewer trucks, only put down sand(which does not melt ice) and decided to shut down midday.
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Old 02-01-2014, 04:46 PM
 
3,836 posts, read 5,735,587 times
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Originally Posted by North Beach Person View Post
Ok, so Atlanta invests, let's say , $75M in equipment and then brings in, oh, 100000 tons of salt every year and they don't get used for, say, 5 years. The local officials will have some heavy duty explaining to do.

It's clear that you really don't know what goes into disaster planning. You plan for the most likely scenario, one that happens most often. Except for flooding, not one that happens every 10, or 20 or 100 years (which is the flooding number).

You've been given examples, I gave you a few. The federal government shuts down at 2 inches. The Metro system stops running above ground at 4.
You're completely missing the point:

Let's look at what could have been done in a counter factual universe where Atlant instead of being auto dependent and spread all over an enormous area was a compact and connected city with a tight urban grid and a good transit system.

1. Most residents would be walking or riding transit with no to minimal impact.
2. There would have been far fewer roads to maintain, resources available could be concentrated.
3. Because of the network, if one road was taken off line due to accident or whatever there would have been hundreds of other options, therefor no paralys, only annoying delays.

Two inches of snow is barely worth noting in most areas of the country..not even enough to break out the toboggans. In a compact, connected and walkable city with no sand... It would have been a non event. In Atlanta, it paralyzed the system.

Sprawl did this, we did this.
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