I made a comment on an earlier post re: the MTA.

Their response: "MARC apologizes for the slippery conditions at the Camden station. It was our understanding that the snow contractors were out around 2pm to
start salting stations. Unfortunately, the sudden drop in temperature and the horrendous traffic jams along with the many accidents put a damper on their efforts yesterday to salt the stations in a timely
manner."

So, they can't have someone in the ticket booth go out and scatter some ice melt on the platform if the contractor fails to show (as long as this wouldn't contravene union/worker rules)?

I understand the traffic accidents and whatnot holding up the heavy vehicles but this a TRAIN PLATFORM. No truck is salting a train platform.

I read the Capital Weather Gang blog and left at 1:30 PM. No problems at all.

Oh, I'm sure that VA and MD had lots of salt trucks out there on Tuesday; the traffic cameras clearly showed the trucks waiting on the shoulder waiting for the perfect moment to spring to action.

In a sequence that EXACTLY matched the December ice event - the ice began to accumulate just as rush hour volumes flooded the roads with the result that the trucks were stuck in traffic accomplishing nothing. As before, the trucks should have been rolling before the rush EVEN THOUGH THE STATE THOUGHT IT STILL TO EARLY. Once rush hour begins the opportunity to salt the roads is lost. Their decision making was wrong.

Oh well, they screwed up last time, they screwed up this time. Any guesses of what happens next time?

VDOT needs their heads examined and nearly everyone there deserves to be fired. Dec 5th and last night were beyond unbearable. Trying in vain to use my GPS to find secondary and tertiary roads back home and the near complete lack of movement allowed me to see that there are so many roads in Alexandria that appear as if they were at one time in the past connected to each other. The grid of streets in this city and surely many other towns needs to be reviewed and many more connections need to be built so that alternative routes can be found. There is too much of a suburban shunt them all to one street mentality outside of old town that led to unbelievable backups.

"As before, the trucks should have been rolling before the rush EVEN THOUGH THE STATE THOUGHT IT STILL TO EARLY. Once rush hour begins the opportunity to salt the roads is lost. Their decision making was wrong."

The problem with salting too early is that if it doesn't change over to sleet/ice then the rain will simply wash a lot of that salt away, making the salting you just did useless if it does change over. So then you are still in the mess of the roads not being properly treated. It also seems economically wasteful to me to spread salt if it isn't necessary (both for gas and for the cost of the salt).

Also, the salt isn't so great for the environment when it gets into the streams, rivers, and the bay. I'm pretty sure the transportation departments do try to minimize their environmental impact by waiting until they are sure that salting is neccessary.

While yes, this event turned out to be an ice event, not all of them are. And unfortunately the weather is hard to predict. If we knew exactly when it would start snowing/sleeting/icing then decision making would be a lot easier.

I am sure Mayor Fenty would be happy to hear that I was very pleased with how DC handled yesterday. They started spreading salt in the morning and even then it was icy, so I am not sure who MD and VA officals were listening to. WTOP said many times that drivers were reporting icy conditions early in the day while watching the salt trucks sit idle.

Metro ran fine last night, but to echo the point of the first poster, I did not see a lot of salting outside stations or on platforms. Yesterday must have been every personal injury lawyers dream.

Dr. G, what's WMATA procedure for treating sidewalks and platforms in situations like this? I got to College Park metro around 6:30 last night and there was no salt put down at the top of the slippery steps (or on the steps) entering the station (which are outside, unprotected). Seems like having the station manager treat those areas would be the easiest and fastest way to handle this problem.

I read with amusement about the thankfully non-fatal accidents in the Springfield exchange. Wasn't this predicted? Didn't people ask "why are you not installing the in-concrete de-icing equipment?"

Funny, that. It seems that the plans to have road vehicles ready for whatever weather situation occurred didn't work.

Why isn't there more about this in the news today? All of Northern Virginia was LITERALLY a parking lot for 4-5 hours last night. Everywhere you turned (even on my little side street that usually only sees local traffic) cars were backed up. They were backed up on my street until 11pm last night! Seriously, someone needs to explain this to the THOUSANDS of people who sat on highways, side streets, waited hours in the rain for busses. VADOT f--ed up. Plain and simple. There is no excuse for this. None.

Furthermore, metro should have had employees (station managers even - should step up) salting all areas of the platforms and outside entrances. While I was awaiting my bus for over two hours at King Street, I saw dozens of people fall down and one lady in a wheel chair who's chair just kept sliding backward and there was nothing she could do about it.

This whole situation was handled so poorly. Yeah, ice stroms suck and they will make travel precarious. Extra time to get home is to be expected. But WAY too many people dropped the ball on this one. There is no reason my friend should have sat on a metro bus for 4.5 hours last night going from the Pentagon to Alexandria Hospital.

On the positive side. Alexandria Dash Bus deserves kudos for their performance during this storm. While their busses were victim, too, to the traffic mess and bad weather, their drivers were safe and courteous, and managed many tired, cold and angry customers with smiles and kind words. Metro could learn a few things from the folks at Dash.

"Didn't people ask 'why are you not installing the in-concrete de-icing equipment?'"

I've thought about that from time to time. I think they concluded that the cost was not justified for the few times a year when such a system would be useful (even though those few times can result in a big mess like yesterday). I suppose another question would be how reliable the de-icers are. Vince Lombardi installed something like that at Lambeau Field when he coached the Packers. Didn't work at all during the Ice Bowl.

One thought that occurs to me is that we have a lot of newer people in the area who don't know any route other than the highways. If you've lived here for a while (my family moved here in 1974), you know that it pays to learn as many different routes as possible, including back ways through neighborhoods and the like. On the other hand, the Springfield backup is compounded by the lack of routes across the Beltway. Van Dorn Street, Telegraph Road, US-1, and the GW Parkway are the only ways across to the east; Backlick Road is the only way across to the west that heads in the same direction as I-95 (Braddock Road goes west, and all the roads between Braddock and Backlick are cut off by the railroad tracks). The point that "NM" makes is a good one in that there are various street patterns that are not connected to each other, thus funneling everyone onto the same arteries. It's good for the homeowners, but it makes the backups a lot worse.

The trucks sat too long before they started rolling and by then it was too late. Again. Laura's comment has some truth - salt CAN be applied too early and if this happened 20 times per winter I would be complaining about the waste of resources and the pollution. But that is not the case.

We have had two ice events this winter where the road crews blew it by sitting on the side of the road too long.

Can we make this a new rule: If rush hour is approaching and the weather is iffy for ice, roll out the trucks so they can make their first rounds before rush hour hits. I honestly don't think this is so complicated.

Speaking as a pedestrian - the sidewalks were a mess in downtown DC. Business owners should have stepped up and taken some responsibility for salting in front of their buildings. Not the whole darn street, just in front of their buildings. Some did, but many didn't. I went into the Starbucks at 7th & E to ask them to re-salt, as someone had just slipped and fallen right in front of their entrance. The girl inside said, "That's not our responsibility."

"PQ," I'm surprised the store owners didn't try to hose off the sidewalks as a way of clearing them! It seems to be their normal solution to problems!

Dr. G. -- A question: what happened to the drivers stuck on the high flyover in the Mixing Bowl?

I was lucky enough to creep safely on the Outer Loop through the Mixing Bowl yesterday around 4pm, after narrowly avoiding adding to a nasty crash on the 66W-to-Outer-Loop ramp. On that highest flyover at the Springfield Interchange, several vehicles were scattered askew in unfortunate positions -- and behind them was a long queue of trucks and cars, trapped in "midair."

What happened to those folks? Did they sit there until the ice melted this morning? There was no way for them to backup, too much ice to go forward, and no place to pull over. What would VDOT and the police recommend doing in that situation?

I never want to get in a car again after last night. I even skipped class this afternoon because of this desire, and because I'm convinced it will happen again tonight.

Basically, I left Catholic University campus, heading to Old Town Alexandria at 6:05pm, and got into Old Town at 9:15. My normal route is NY Ave to 395 to GW Parkway. I bailed on 395 early (after crawling for a half hour), thinking it would be quicker to make my way though the city. It possibly was quicker than 395 (who knows, based on last night) but it still took me more than an hour to get to and over Memorial Bridge, then about an hour/hour-15 to get down the GW Parkway to Old Town from Memorial Bridge (45 minutes from National to Old Town!)

I didn't get to vote, almost ran out of gas and currently am putting grad school grades in jeopardy because I'm seriously convinced that it will be the same tonight.

You asked who we blame--I honestly blame drivers primarily. You won't have as many traffic-creating fender benders and the like if you'd learn to drive in inclement weather down here! Tips:

1)The signs are telling the truth: bridges DO freeze before roads!
2)Speeding is a bad idea on breezy June days, and a deadly idea on icy February evenings. Slow the blank down for once in your life.
3)Same goes for tailgating. Leave several car-lengths if possible. And seriously, buttinskies, when have you ever seen anyone leave that large of a space between cars 'round these parts? That's done for SAFETY reasons. Don't butt in here unless you want the hood of my car in your trunk. You need to be particularly careful in bad weather: is a special place in hell for buttinskies and you should put off your one-way trip as long as possible.
4)Break (the petal to the left of the gas for you speeders) slowly and early. Like, insanely slowly and early. Essentially, the moment you realize that you'll need to stop eventually is the moment AFTER you should have started caressing (not hitting) the breaks.

You would think with all of the extra taxes us NoVA folks are paying (car reg., inspections, sales tax on car repairs and gym memberships, etc.) that the state could get some salt trucks out... Metro last night was fine, but the drive back from the station, usually 10-15 minutes, took an hour and a half.

Where's our tax $$ actually going, Mr. Kaine?

street grids, here? why have roads make sense?

A large percentage of Northern VA was unable to get to the polls and vote due to VDOTs screw up, and not a word about it in the Post?

I ended up abandoning my car on the road because traffic just wasn't moving anywhere. I carefully moved my car onto the shoulder and walked to a nearby fast food place. At least it was warm.

I was a little late for work because I always vote in the morning and I had a 45 minute line. (fantastic turnout... I'm usually in and out in 2 minutes...)

Because I was late, I wasn't able to leave as early as I wanted to. I work in SE near the Navy Yard and commute from N. Arlington. I drive because it's 10 to 20 minutes compared to at least an hour using Metro. But the SE/SW freeway was terribly backed up to get to the 14th street bridge to get back to the GW Parkway. Didn't even consider it.

Instead, I took what must be a "secret" route around it I'll share since NO ONE ELSE was using my favorite alternate route back to VA. Instead of 395, work your way over to the almost right lane (everyone else is trying to merge left, so it is a little tricky) and follow the signs to 12th Street. The 12th Street tunnel goes right to Constitution and it's only 10 blocks to the Roosevelt bridge.

My total drive time last night around 5pm was 20 minutes. Please keep this just between us. ;-)

That route might work, but Maine Avenue to Independence Avenue is usually faster. Its no big secret tho :)

I was appalled by VDOT and MD SHA's response to this storm. Yes, you can pre-treat roads. They do it up north. They do it in NC. They did it in DC. DC roads were fine yesterday. The whole mixing bowl closed....wow. I was lucky...reverse commute Gaithersburg to DC in 2 hours. Did run across two closed bridges...Great Seneca Highway and Klingle Valley on Connecticut Avenue. The backups on Connecticut were un-real, and I ended up having to go the wrong way up a one-way street to get home (yes, I did it carefully, and I did it partly because I knew no one could get to the correct entrance to the block due to the traffic jam).

"4)Break (the petal to the left of the gas"

It's "Brake" and "pedal" grad student...

my recommendations would be to stagger the time people are let out (meaning the government) when i contracted for the gov't and was let out early i would either leave much earlier (knowing what would happen) or leave much later. For example, if schools are let out at say 2pm, then parents only should leave at 2. everyone else at 3. dc/va/md roads are so modest that having a sudden influx of every driving employed person makes for a huge mess. if the areas largest employer (government offices) staggered release time it would go alot towards helping the traffic.

I can't complain about my commute from Ballston to Old Town, where I work. I usually take 50 to the GW then get on US1 via Slater's Lane. It takes about 15 minutes.

After leaving work that day, however, I noticed that the GW was backed up from Slater's Lane for as long as I could see. I did a quick U-Turn, wanting to get back on US1. Due to the Potomac Yard bridge construction, the US1 bridge has three lanes, with one reversible for rush hour. Since my commute is reverse, I was stuck in the single lane, on the bridge, about ten cars behind an accident at the bottom of the bridge, with nowhere to go until the accident was cleared.

The ordeal took about an hour, so it's nothing compared to what many had to go through. The scary part of the commute, however, were the icy bridges--my car started skidding down the US1 bridge, and I didn't even brake; I just downshifted to first specifically to avoid braking. The ramp from the GW to 50 was also iced over--my wheels spun for a moment when I gave just a little gas to go into the turn.