The Stupidity of the Storm

Sometimes I see things happening in this city that I really can't even begin to understand. The recent snow removal initiatives that the City of Toronto are attempting to implement after several major winter storms are quite possibly the most poorly thought through initiatives I have ever seen.

Yesterday I was on my way home from school on the 60 bus that runs along Steeles West from the University. I was happy because class was ending early and I was able to get on the bus around 4:15, about 45 minutes before the road would become a war zone due to rush hour. That amount of time should have gotten me off the bus and home before 5 pm. I was blissfully unaware, listening to my MP3 player and catching up on some readings when I realized the bus had slowed to a near crawl, and we were only a few blocks onto Steeles. The bus window was clouded over with condensation and dirt, making it nearly impossible to see out, and was packed so tightly with people I had no ability to see the road or what the hold up may have been.

My usual ride takes between, from start to finish, about 30 - 45 minutes. At about 5:30 yesterday, an hour and 15 minutes after departing from the University Commons, I was still sitting on a bus that would move a few feet every 1 - 2 minutes, only to come to a dead stop once again. Dozens of probable causes ran though my mind, from a simple stalled call in the middle lane to a horrible car pile-up, or a pedestrian being hit (especially during rush hour when people who usually drive like maniacs with horseblinders on step it up to a whole other level of insanity). Finally, after 1 hour and 45 minutes, I decided to suck it up and get out at the next stop (I still had no idea where I was or how far I was going to have to walk). After pushing through a whole mess of people and finding myself about 5 blocks from my stop, I went out onto the sidewalk and noticed that all three lanes of traffic going east were blocked off by police cars and barricades. I walked a little further and saw huge dumptrucks and front loader machines scooping up the snowbanks from the side of the road.

A blocked section of road from 1 intersection to the next caused the time of my commute to more than double, and stopped rush hour traffic in a city of over 2 million people in all four directions for near kilometers. All so a few banks of snow could be removed.

Are you kidding me Toronto?

I couldn't figure out why removing snowbanks that had already been innocently sitting there for weeks needed to be removed so promptly, and why this had to be done on a major artery of traffic at the heart of the rush hour commute, which the City very well knew would be occurring at the time of the procedure. So I looked into it, figuring there must be something I'm missing. Here's an excerpt of an article I found in the Toronto Star today:

Major snowfalls this month, combined with a thaw and freeze, have created icy snowbanks that spill outward and impede traffic flow.

Crews worked through the weekend removing crusted snow from major downtown routes, as well as the Gardiner, Don Valley and Allen expressways.

"The concern is that people aren't able to park on side streets because of the amount of snow," says Noehammer. "And now, with the very cold temperatures, it's frozen into a hard, icy mass."

Crews have to break up the snowbanks and push the snow into the road so it can be scooped up into dump trucks.

On some major streets, the city used massive snowblowers to shave down banks.

This "makes space for additional snow to be stored in the next storm," says Noehammer.

To most people, the sooty white piles between a sidewalk and road are just snowbanks.
But to the city, those areas are storage spaces for snow – and they must, according to policy, get whittled down once they reach a height of 30 centimetres.

Once again, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You're doing this to make the sidewalks more accessible? You mean, the same sidewalks that have over the past few days become treacherous sheets of thick, uneven ice that haven't been treated with a speck of salt or sand, most likely because you are too busy removing "harmful" snowbanks that will "impede traffic". I don't know about you, but somehow I think shutting down large sections of major roads during peak traffic periods is going to impede traffic and be a lot more dangerous for driving that a few pieces of snow or ice falling into the road from snowbanks. Here's an idea - make it illegal to park on the sidestreets during the winter if you're concerned about snow removal and impeding traffic. It's called a garage, a driveway, or a parking lot. There's hundreds all over the city - and it will boost the economy at the same time. Instead of spending 20 million to remove snowbanks, we can benefit of the cheapness of drivers who don't want to pay to park their vehicles, and would rather clog up the neighborhoods of others.

P.S. I'm supposed to be in class right now. Steeles is still shut down, and I couldn't even get to my bus stop to even try and get on a bus going in the direction of the university. The sound of ear piercing honking is still ringing in my ear, and who knows when/if I'll be able to attend classes again. Who wants to bet I'll be reimbursed the cost of my missed class by the city? Yeah right.