Maryland digs big snow, but without big trucks
I'll give the last word before Getting There signs off for today to state Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen, who has been working long and hard since these storms began to keep Maryland's highways passable.
He noted that while Maryland has just gone though two storms of Buffalonian proportions, it does not own as many trucks or as many monstrous pieces of equipment as those that the disposal of authorities in Buffalo or other northern areas. For instance, the state has only two of the massive high-capacity snow blowers that would chew through and spit out the type of dense snow packs on our roads now, and those are generally deployed in the snow-happy counties of far Western Maryland. They were brought down to the lowlands for the past week's snowfall, but they were far to few to deal with the massive challenges the state faced around Baltimore and Washington.
Naturally those vehicles are fiendishly expensive and have limited uses when the snow isn't falling. Yes, I know Maryland's transportation budget is strained, but let's buy the SHA as many as it wants. As I see it, that would be a virtual guarantee we'd never see another storm like this for 50 years. I don't know about you, but I could live with that.
Comments
I have a flight that is supposed to land at 11pm at BWI on THURS - do you have a sense if it will be safe to drive on 95 to DC? Thanks for the updates - very hard to get good info!
COMMENT: The roads around BWI are passable, but allow extra time to drive slowly. Check with airline before setting out.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 10, 2010 8:08 PM
I have an opposite opinion... this is record-breaking snowfall, and I personally feel it's difficult to justify spending non-existent funds on machinery which may be used only intermittently on 10-yr storms; and too-rarely on 50-yr storms or 100-yr winters.
Granted, if it were approached from an economic standpoint: the cost of more machines may be dwarfed by the costs of a stalled local economy... but there are plenty of other decisions out there which make simple sense: investing in A saves us B in the long run; but I'd bet there are other investments which would yield far more benefit.
Posted by: Bossi | February 11, 2010 5:14 PM
While it has been frustrating waiting for roads to be plowed, etc. This area is not equipped to deal with this kind of snow.
I don't have a snow blower because it wouldn't be worth having equipment that gets used once or twice every 5 years.
The same principle applies to municipalities/state.
Just think the South is getting some snow over the next few days. Want to see a mess?
Posted by: FormerNewEnglanderSoon2Return | February 12, 2010 3:09 PM