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| Curb ramps still snowed in at Wisconsin Avenue crosswalk at Chase Avenue last night |
Roads in downtown Bethesda were generally in good shape by yesterday afternoon, but snow plowing operations in residential neighborhoods have been complicated by the ice that made up a substantial part of the precipitation that fell between 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM on Sunday. I noticed that Montgomery County plows were having a harder time than usual getting down to bare pavement on neighborhood streets, making four passes instead of the typical two, and there being a lot more noise as a lot of the snow and ice were simply getting crushed flatter by the heavy truck. I have also seen smaller pickup truck-size vehicles with plows now being deployed.
One other factor may have played a role where road conditions remained poor. Driving around parts of Bethesda prior to the storm's arrival, I found that much less of the solution used to pre-treat the pavement had been applied to the County streets I traveled, compared to previous years. I don't know if this was a cost-saving decision, a malfunctioning sprayer truck, or a kneebend to environmental organizations. But a couple of stripes in each travel lane certainly meant that the melting function was diminished.
Also, as of last evening, the crosswalk curb ramps on either side of Wisconsin Avenue at Chase Avenue had not yet been shoveled. Property owners are responsible for clearing these ramps, as well as the sidewalks. See the photo at the top of this article. But in general, it's really quite impressive that the County was able to get the downtown streets into the condition you see here, as this snow was very, very nasty to shovel and plow after the ice storm started just before sunrise on Sunday. Despite the recent and frustrating trend of plowing only a single lane on residential side streets (property taxes have not been correspondingly reduced by 66%), we should cut the snowplow drivers a break in this case, because they were really struggling in spots to clear this away.
7 comments:
The snow service that I hired was very late for the same reason. They could not move until the residential streets were plowed and then it was slow going for them even with a snow blower and two guys with shovels.
And yet somehow, NYC, Chicago, Boston and other major areas, hit with snow and ice exp winter, get things cleared so effectively and efficiently that by morning, every road, crossing and side street is clear. Prove me wrong. Never seen this here ever especially not with snow totals that weren't anywhere near what was forecasted. Easy to Monday morning quarterback? Sure. But there's sometime else going on here and it stinks of budget cuts. Anti ICE bills being proudly penned yet weatherman Chuck Bell's prediction that not a single hour of class time this week will be held is all but assured to come true. This isn't Raleigh. How embarrassing.
Thanks Robert.
Our neighborhood was plowed in good time, away from downtown.
We were driving around yesterday. Did you?
Kinda' difficult to "drive around" when you can't even get your car out of the parking space in the lot of a building on Battery Lane "owned" by HOC and managed by slumlord ResOne©. Glad you enjoyed your outing, btw try being a pedestrian sometime and and schlep from one end of town to the other walking through nasty slush and mountains of snow carelessly plowed high blocking crosswalks & sidewalks.
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JAC @ 9:34 AM -
You really should have gone to news sites for any of those cities before you shot from the hip. All of those cities are struggling with the effects of the storm.
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