The Economics of Snow Removal

I wish I had saved the title of my previous post for today. I woke up this morning early afternoon and checked my email only to find about a dozen RPIN emails to the effect that Seattle was paralyzed and good luck trying to get to Redmond on the bus. So I went to Southlake Grill and got some lunch and a few Winter Hooks. I used my phone to email my manager to say I wasn't coming in and he replied to the effect of "you and 90% of the company, including myself."

This whole thing just reiterates the point I made in my last entry. It's not as though the city doesn't have any snowplows or sanding trucks. They certainly do, but it doesn't seem to be nearly enough. My sister was trying to convince me earlier that it is not economically feasible to have more infrastructure for Seattle's relatively few snowstorms, but I pointed out that they incur a lot of expenses as a result - more emergency calls, lost bus fares, towing and repairing damaged or disabled buses, lost tax revenue when businesses are closed, and so on. I don't claim to know where the break-even is, but as someone from Illinois I just find it mind-boggling that a city the size of Seattle would be all but shut down by 3 inches of snow.

I will concede, however, that Seattle is a lot less flat than Chicago. I suppose that makes some difference.