Monday, December 22, 2008

(Infra-) Structural Issues

Here are some of the frustrations endured by the residents of Seattle, compounding our weather caused problems. 1) There are no obvious criteria for which roads get plowed and sanded first, as even arterials are still now, 5 days later, buried under mounds of slush, ice, snow, and soon to be more snow 2) Our transit gurus have not yet figured out that articulated and electric buses do not fare well in heavy snow conditions 3) Instead of adding MORE buses to help citizens get around, they pull buses off routes that had snow problems, but did not add additional service on the snow routes (see this article in The Stranger) 4) The transit website is more than useless in its information on which buses are running at all, let alone late 5) Who knew that there was a strike at a de-icing plant last month that caused three airlines to cancel flights for lack of enough de-icer; and now de-ice tankers are stuck on the other side of the mountain and on rails with ice-stuck switches 6)Sea-Tac airport needs some sort of concierge service to help stranded passengers not only to assist them in getting food and shelter (especially families with small children), but also to help passengers get themselves rebooked...it is not good enough just to let them flounder and overwhelm already stressed out airline personnel 7) And let us finally get that damn coastal radar system so that weather experts can actually see these systems on their final approach!

And to think I could have been here instead!: