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Has the OP not noticed that sprawly cities just a little further north coped with the same snow storm with only minor incidents. Why yes we did.
People, our OP has an agenda so deep it has warped his view of the world. He even went so far as to compare a planning official to a unicorn of a UFO or was it a unicorn flying a UFO. But I am going to break my vow to not respond to his inanity with a couple of observations.
This storm was unusual because the snow started in the day, not at night. Most winter days in the south are above freezing and the rain turns to snow as the temperature drops during the night. People wake up to snow and just stay home. Then you had very cold ground and all the factors mentioned above.
Transit alone will not cure a snowmageddon. Look at DC.
Isn't it a little distasteful to get such glee out of others' misery. That is a sign of someone who is unhappy with their lot in life.
He jobs are in the northern part of he metro area...where there is no transit. Fulton is the southern part, the northern areas are really hellbent in not having transit. In ATL the derogatory name for the transit system is "moving Africans rapid,y through Atlanta". And that is exactly what the northern suburbs want to prevent from happening.
Funny name, but it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that there is no dearth of affordable close-in housing in Atlanta. Sounds like the only dearth of affordable housing is more in the northern part which has no transit. And they're doing a crap job of keeping job up north on all accounts considering they have rail lines running up there. Marrieta isn't exactly white bread, and Dalton has more blacks than whites.
The point is no one is being forced up there by a lack of in-close housing. Some people just *gasp* choose to live in sprawl. They often sometimes even pay more to do so.
"More than any event I’ve witnessed in two decades of living in and writing about this city, this snowstorm underscores the horrible history of suburban sprawl in the United States and the bad political decisions that drive it. It tells us something not just about what’s wrong with one city in America today but what can happen when disaster strikes many places across the country. As with famines in foreign lands, it’s important to understand: It’s not an act of nature or God—this fiasco is manmade from start to finish."
This has nothing to do with sprawl. It has to do with insufficient equipment (snowplows, salting trucks) and a plan to implement them.
If you receive a event only once every 5+ years, having the same number of snowplows and trucks as New York Metro area, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland sitting idle year after year makes no sense. When the event does happen, crews don't have the experience to deal with it.
The same thing happened when low level hurricanes (tropical storms) Irene and Sandy hit the Northeast. It would have been a minor event for FL or the Carolinas, but in the Northeast/NJ it was a disaster.
The same thing happened when low level hurricanes (tropical storms) Irene and Sandy hit the Northeast. It would have been a minor event for FL or the Carolinas, but in the Northeast/NJ it was a disaster.
The bulk of the damage from Sandy was storm surge. The storm surge wasn't particularly minor, hurricanes are categorized by wind, not storm surge, which was larger than typical hurricanes of that wind speed as Sandy was enormous in size. There's not really much you can do to prepare against storm surge, sandbags maybe. As for Irene, most of the damage was from river flooding inland (Vermont, Hudson Valley, etc)
It is systemic. ATL assumes the only option is driving. No alternatives. No sidewalks....
Ummm, the example you cited did concern a bus ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408
I went to Denver on a business trip during the winter. My hotel was around 3/4 of a mile from the client meeting. They asked me if I wanted to rent a car. I declined since it was snowy. I decided to walk and got to see more of downtown. They thought I was crazy....
Or perhaps they were being hospitable. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lvoc
I have also seen a half inch of unexpected ice shut Rochester down.
It's all relative, too. I'm originally from Erie, so no doubt we have similar experiences. It may take a blizzard to shut Erie down - although last week extreme cold did the trick - but a blizzard to Erie is what 8 inches of snow is to Philly is what 2 inches of snow is to Atlanta.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
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.
The pictures of the freeways showed dozens of semis jackknifed on the ice, preventing traffic from moving. Perhaps Atlanta should be blaming the truck drivers instead?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
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.
Good points all around. Even with plows and salt, roads re-freeze when the temps dip low enough - and Atlanta is not equipped to handle extreme cold, let alone extreme cold on top of ice and snow.
Good for you! I hope you enjoyed it! Yes, there is a black part of town, and yes, many outsiders think Colorado is all white-bread but it's not.
I thought it was Mexican and white.
It is pretty cute. It might stay on my priced out of CA list. I lost all cities on it....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
Ummm, the example you cited did concern a bus ...
The issue wasn't the bus but the crosswalk placement. A sign of lack of walkability.
Quote:
Or perhaps they were being hospitable. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Most trips assume a car. I like to avoid it when possible as a general preference. They thought it was just weird in general. They thought it was a huge inconvenience not to have access to a car. I thought it was a little weird considering the area I was staying was billed as walkable. I thought it made sense to see if that was the case.
Quote:
Good points all around. Even with plows and salt, roads re-freeze when the temps dip low enough - and Atlanta is not equipped to handle extreme cold, let alone extreme cold on top of ice and snow.
Taking away the snow part, ATL is ill equipped for alternate travel options. That is what was illustrated here.
It is pretty cute. It might stay on my priced out of CA list. I lost all cities on it....
The issue wasn't the bus but the crosswalk placement. A sign of lack of walkability.
Most trips assume a car. I like to avoid it when possible as a general preference. They thought it was just weird in general. They thought it was a huge inconvenience not to have access to a car. I thought it was a little weird considering the area I was staying was billed as walkable. I thought it made sense to see if that was the case.
Taking away the snow part, ATL is ill equipped for alternate travel options. That is what was illustrated here.
IIRC, there was alcohol involved and other factors, too with the bus issue. You can't make an example of a whole metro area from one news article that doesn't necessarily have all the information.
"They" were just trying to make their guest comfortable. That's what "we" do out here.
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