Have you ever been in a car on the roads of Denver drifting and fishtailing all over the streets? Because, if you have, you’re not alone. Although it has been a two days since it snowed last, the side streets of Denver are packed down with snow from weeks ago making it dangerous to drive or to be a passenger on the streets.
The city of Denver needs to make greater strides to change the conditions of our roads in the winter months.
It’s scary being in a car when you know the driver didn’t mean to slide over into the next lane. But, the city can help prevent this.
Right now according to the city of Denver website Denver has, “a fleet of 36 smaller, residential plows, which deploy on the side streets if enough snow has accumulated to where the 4×4 pickup trucks can be helpful”. Denver is 155 miles squared, How are these 36 residential plows going to hit every residential street in Denver?
Also, why don’t we use real plows on these streets instead of pickup trucks?
Right now, the streets look like someone spray painted them white until they couldn’t see the tar and these pickup trucks aren’t doing anything about it.
The streets have been bad all winter and nothing has made the city of Denver change it. Even during the city’s first snowfall the city wasn’t ready to handle it. Denver’s local station of fox news reported 193 crashes in a ten hour span during this storm.
So how does the city want us to feel safe when all these crashes happen during snow storms?
You can’t even see the street in the picture above but, we have no other choice than to drive on them. Majority of the city lives on these side streets and takes them to work, school, and even just to get around to the grocery store yet they still look about as drivable as a hockey rink.
And let me remind you not everyone has the type of car to deal with these conditions.
During the snow last Friday, it was reported that there were fewer drivers on the road than a normal snow day. With the bad road conditions and no sign of them getting better why would people want to leave the safety of their own house and risk going out on the snowy and icy roads unless they have no other choice?
On that Friday, Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure sent out snow plows in which they only went over the residential roads once. How does it seem like that will clear the roads for a safe trip?
As you can see from the picture even the main roads were looking a little too slippery so how is one time going over the side roads going to make them safer? Even if the city of Denver took as much care of the side roads as they did the main roads it still seems like it is way to dangerous to feel safe driving on.
Other than being too dangerous, extra snow on the roads will increase the time it takes to commute around the city.
The United States Department of Transportation stated that on snow packed roads drivers should reduce their speed by half. This would mean it takes double the normal time it would usually take for someone to go to work, drive their kid to school, or even just run errands.
It already takes forever to get anywhere in Denver how does the city expect us to have so much time?
This year the city of Denver is putting 118 million dollars into increasing mobility and transportation option but shouldn’t some of that money go to helping us get around better in winter months. The city needs to look into spending more money on plows and other ways to help our streets get back to their original colors.
Hopefully one day during the snowy months when going to work we won’t have to worry about if our car is going to skid into the next lane or being able to stop at the stop sign. We should have the ability to live in a city with snow where safe driving is a reality.
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