Riding in the snow
30/12/09 18:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsA couple of things happen when it snows in a city that doesn't get much snow: there isn't significant public investment in snow-management, like plows and gravel trucks and big union-wage standby crews with bus-tire chains, so the streets remain snowy; people who learned to drive here don't know how to drive in snow, and people who learned to drive in snow go ballistic over the idiot locals' inability to handle it.
(These same people go out of their way to hide their in-migrant status every other day of the year. Me, I'm a native, but I learned to drive in Hawaii: that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. My absolute policy when two or more snowflakes fall is no-drive, no-complain.)
So when we have a completely unpredicted snowfall in Portland, as we did yesterday, the place becomes a giant clusterfuck of insane traffic, accusations of City and DOT malfeasance (graft, corruption, fuckwittery, you name it), foul tempers, car wrecks, and general madness.
It seems that bicyclists were just about the only people getting home in good time last night. I wasn't one of them, me being on vacation and all, but my sister was, and she's one of many cyclists reporting today that it was kind of pleasant, riding home on deserted streets in the bright new snow.
Before it all melted today, I rode Clyde to the grocery store and the coffee shop, just a few blocks, to find out what it was like. It was frankly kind of scary. I didn't have good control and I would not have wanted to be anywhere near moving cars. I might consider studded tires.
But it hardly seems worth it, because we just don't get that much snow...
(These same people go out of their way to hide their in-migrant status every other day of the year. Me, I'm a native, but I learned to drive in Hawaii: that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. My absolute policy when two or more snowflakes fall is no-drive, no-complain.)
So when we have a completely unpredicted snowfall in Portland, as we did yesterday, the place becomes a giant clusterfuck of insane traffic, accusations of City and DOT malfeasance (graft, corruption, fuckwittery, you name it), foul tempers, car wrecks, and general madness.
It seems that bicyclists were just about the only people getting home in good time last night. I wasn't one of them, me being on vacation and all, but my sister was, and she's one of many cyclists reporting today that it was kind of pleasant, riding home on deserted streets in the bright new snow.
Before it all melted today, I rode Clyde to the grocery store and the coffee shop, just a few blocks, to find out what it was like. It was frankly kind of scary. I didn't have good control and I would not have wanted to be anywhere near moving cars. I might consider studded tires.
But it hardly seems worth it, because we just don't get that much snow...
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