I never comment on next door neighbor. No matter how carefully people choose their words when posting, the comments quickly find a way to go south into a cesspool.

This weekend a poster launched into a kvetch about how the city was not clearing snow out of the bike lanes. This was posted only 24 hours after a snow event. We didn’t get a LOT of snow (2-3 inches?) but high winds created havoc for the plows, quickly re-filling the streets with snow. This person apparently does not drive an automotive vee-hickle, choosing to bike downtown to their work. That’s FINE but isn’t necessarily a viable option in the immediate aftermath of a snow storm, depending on your bicycle and your skills and about a bazillion other variables.

People kvetched about the city snow removal crews (and that service *is* better some times than others in my experience). They pointed fingers at each other for various modes of chosen transportation. Some proudly proclaimed that they don’t own a car. Others wished they *could* go car-free but can’t for various reasons. One guy helps his elderly mother get around town. Been there, done that, car needed. Yada yada.

During this same storm, Sault Ste. Siberia got THREE FEET!!! also with high winds. I didn’t see ONE Soo facebook post complaining that they couldn’t ride their bike downtown. People were checking up on others. EVERYTHING was closed down, even xmas church services. The idea was to keep EMERGENCY RESPONDERS SAFE, allowing them the space to do their jobs, aka HELP PEOPLE without having to navigate a bunch of buried, abandoned vee-hickles.

Comparing one community’s response to three feet of snow to another’s response to (maybe) three inches left a really bad taste in my mouth. I FULLY SUPPORT efforts to improve transit infrastructure for cyclists. But snowstorms are what we used to call “an act of God”, right? Life sometimes has to stop or at least slow down to give those whose job it is to clean up the mess the space to do it. Our little storm was annoying but we have a wonderful bus system, it was up and running, and seems like this person could have taken a bus. Patience please!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2022 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.