Daley Ponderings

I was telling my mom the other day about how strange it was that Pittsburgh is all but closed down after the snowstorm on Saturday.  Even the major roads (5th, Forbes, Negley, Penn) are not plowed, or rather, seem to have been plowed after one foot of snow fell, but then they didn't come around again for the next six to twelve inches.

We drove down on Sunday to shovel our rented parking spaces for our renters and it was quite odd that the roads were less and less plowed the closer we got to the city.  I suppose one could make the argument that the suburbs have more money available, but not all of the suburbs are ritzy, so I wouldn't think that argument would hold up to scrutiny.  Though I expected the small side street to not be plowed (I'm not exactly sure how one would plow it, since there isn't much place to put the snow, and the road is so narrow, I'm not sure if a plow could fit down it all that well anyway) I did expect the biggest roads in the city to be plowed.  I am not sure what the city is thinking - maybe just that it will melt in the next month or so, so might as well not send out the plows just yet.

I also thought it was funny how many people thought we were crazy to drive down to the city in such bad conditions, etc. to take care of the driveway (I was also going with some people to Bellefield for a meeting about our upcoming mission trip to the Dominican Republic), so the trip wasn't entirely to shovel, though I had considered going down the day before just to shovel (and to follow the Pittsburgh law about shoveling the sidewalks within 24 hours of a storm), but I decided that if Pittsburgh wasn't plowing, then they certainly wouldn't expect their residents to shovel either.

Anyway, mom and I were laughing about how poorly they take care of snow, and how much people aren't used to snow, etc. when mom recounted a story from when her youth group was in Wyoming, and her kids were telling a girl about school getting cancelled for snow, and she was dumbstruck that one would cancel school, "I mean, we might get three feet or something, but why would you cancel school?"  Even I, Mr. NH, considers three feet to be quite a storm.

The rumors and/or cynics would say that Pittsburgh's problem is all about corruption, and it does make one wonder what they do with all of the money - we just did our taxes, and I always like to compare the current year's return to the last one to see if there are any big changes - and make sure any changes make sense. The local taxes were way down - and Heather figured it out first - that Pittsburgh's tax rate is triple the rate where we now live, so it made sense - but it got me thinking about where the money is being spent.

I happened to wake up during the snowstorm (3AM), and I saw that the plows had been by once, but they would probably be coming by again shortly, so I went out and shoveled the end of the driveway, pushing the snow to the right side, etc. so the plow would do a bunch of the work for me, and while I was out, the township plow came by - not plowing, but apparently just checking things out or something.  And then was back within a couple hours to finish the job.  And since the snow stopped on Saturday morning, the roads have been clear since then (the temperatures rose to 30ish or so on Saturday, and the sun melted the thin layer that was left).  Contrast that to Pittsburgh, where they decided not to plow, and we were driving in probably 4 inches of packed snow on all of the roads, and more snow is expected today and tomorrow, so it'll be the same thing all over again.

I do realize that there are some "real" problems caused by the storm - trees and power lines down, but I don't consider the snow itself that much of a problem.  Anyone know any reasons why Pittsburgh doesn't plow?  I looked around in the papers a little, but I didn't see anything.