TheAgitator.com
Blizzard Economics
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Two streets in my neighborhood that lie right next to one another. Photos were taken within seconds of one another. The street on the left is a main road. The street on the right is a service road. The service road is owned by the city, but for all practical purposes, it’s private. All of the parking spaces along the side are the property of the people who live in the houses that line the street. The street is one-way, and it’s only used by the people who own or rent those spaces. Anyone passing through obviously takes the main road. The city will eventually get around to plowing the main road. The city never plows the service road. Less than 24 hours after the blizzard, guess which road is clear, and which is suitable only for four-wheel drive vehicles?
More snow-themed econ here.
MORE: Some of you seem to have missed the point of the post. I’m not criticizing the city for not getting to the main road. It’s only been a day, and we got the largest snowfall in the area’s recorded history. The point is that where people expect the city to send eventually plows, the road is still snowed. Where the city has no history of sending a plow, and isn’t likely to, residents grabbed shovels, and cleared the road in 24 hours.
The bigger problem is when the city plows its snow into your cleared area. Take THAT independent minded, self reliant citizen!
I think this is one we all know to be true. If you have money or power, you get your services back first. Poor, out of touch? You get to wait until all the important people have things back to normal.
Oddly enough, my dead end court in Arlington was plowed and sanded before I woke up this morning (Sunday).
Must be some big democratic donor living on my block and I didnt know it.
While I am happy that I can get out now, my excuse for skipping working tomorrow is gone, so I am conflicted.
Maybe not enough coffee this morning, but I do not understand the point of this post. Aren’t *both* streets city streets?
And, while the main road is not clear down to pavement, it does appear to have been plowed, and looks passable.
The point is that those of us who live along the service road dug out our own cars and shoveled off the road ourselves so we could use it, including the portions of the road occupied by people who aren’t physically able to shovel. The people who use the main road are still waiting for the city to plow it.
The city did send a couple of trucks to compact the snow on the main road, but it hasn’t been plowed. And it’s not drivable if you don’t have four-wheel drive. I’ve seen several small cars get stuck on the incline.
I’m not understanding either. Did the citizens pay for a private snowplow to come through? Did they use shovels themselves? Are you sure the city never plows the service roads? Heck, the situation is exactly reverse in my neighborhood, (main street fine, service/neighborhood roads sucking).
My comment posted after yours, obviously.
I was puzzled by the link. Does leaving an object to reserve your space actually work? The last time I was in a city for a snowstorm, it was Brooklyn and to say that it wouldn’t have worked there is an understatement.
Argh! I meant “before” yours, and posted after. Stoopid typinf skilz.
At CC, we do this all the time in Pittsburgh, without snow. People save their parking spaces with a chair in many neighborhoods, and this is a practice that occurs year round.
I do not know about Boston, but around here if you take someones spot and move their chair, you might just end up with a chair through your windshield.
The lawn-chair-dibs system after a snowstorm is popular in Chicago too. It generally works better in less yuppified/younger-aged neighborhoods where people are more used to and respectful of the custom (and each other).
Nest thing you know the citizens will line up and throw snowballs at the drivers.
Snowfall clearing is always entertaining to watch, especially in cities.
Makes ya thing that maybe the plow driver lives on the service road?
Unfair comparison.
In Chicago, Montreal, Burlington VT, Butte, Fargo – you know, cities where they actually expect, plan for and budget for 30″ snowstorms – the public roads are cleared by the public authorities.
DC not so much.
Suppose the city went out and bought or leased all the equipment that, say, Boston has (which wouldn’t really be sufficient for this storm, either, at least not in the first 24 hours).
The screaming about corrupt, wasteful, incompetent, inefficient government would be heard coast to coast. And deservedly so.
No municipality – and no private company, for that matter – budgets for a once-in-a-century event.
There are enough real reasons to complain about DC government.
Bill Anderson shares a similar experience from rural Maryland.
@14 Nick
Does “done privately” in this case mean: everyone took care of the public space fronting their property?
Or: Private contractors were hired by the municipal/county/state/whatever entity to do the job because the entity couldn’t handle it? (This is done frequently in Northern climes as well).
Two very different things.
I’m confused. You dug out, what? The equivalent of a small driveway? And the OTHER people on the main road are losers because they couldn’t dig out their cars, AND the access to the main road, AND the main road too?
#14: Bill Anderson probably has a tractor with a front loader. I have one too! A Mahindra 4500. If I had that here, I could clear the street in front of my house easy. But it’s not here, it’s on my property in Missouri, where I have about 1/2 of a mile of my own road. All I have here is a plastic Snow Shovel. And there is no way in hell me and my plastic Snow Shovel would be able to clear the road.
You and Bill deserve medals for your astonishing self sufficiency!
Bob,
Are you capable of making your point without being a dick? Your ability to comment here in the future may depend on it.
Never mind that you completely missed the point of the post. And yes, you are confused.
Ok, I’ll accept that I’m confused.
As such, I’m sure I totally missed the point of the article. Could you please explain it to me?
The way I saw it, you’ve got a tiny little one way street with cars parked nut to butt along one side. Each car represents a person with a Snow Shovel and varying degrees of shoveling prowess. As such, you were able to clear the street. Not only that, but with a single clear curb, it was easy to figure out where the snow should go, no organization required, really.
Also, you knew from previous experience that the City wasn’t going to do it. Probably because it’s a tiny little side street. So, you cleared the street yourselves.
How am I doing so far?
Let’s go to the other street. It’s much bigger, with way more area per possible shoveler and no clear responsibility for each shoveler to respond to. In fact, it appears that it’s outside the bounds of feasibility for the residents that live by it to clear it. They need the city to do it for them.
So… is your point that the main road is a common road, as as such less likely to be serviced by the people living along side it, even though they are likely unable to do so anyway?
Yeah, I totally don’t get your point. And I’m not trying to be sarcastic, I really don’t get your point.
Oh! Ok! I just read your update.
Dude. You cleared your dinky side street because you could it with an unorganized group of casual people. Section responsibility was obvious. Where to throw the snow was obvious. Clearing the main road is simply beyond the scope of a bunch of unorganized people with plastic Snow Shovels to accomplish.
“Does leaving an object to reserve your space actually work? The last time I was in a city for a snowstorm, it was Brooklyn and to say that it wouldn’t have worked there is an understatement.”
Same system in Philly. Of course it works. No-one parks there unless they want their car keyed.
Always amuses me what defines unpassable. Up here in MI, I can’t imagine needing a 4wd to get through the one on the left. Even when I lived in CO for a few years, I was amazed that most people would not be able to make it on road A, even in a 4×4. Then again, I later learned it was because I learned to drive in MI and they all learned in CA or TX. And a friend of mine lives in SC and explained how they had full-day school closings for 1/4″ of snow once. “Passable” is very defendant on the snow-driving skills of the driver, which is primarily geographically defined. (I switch from my sedan to my 4×4 at around 5 inches, and I am miles from anything resembling civilization.)
And yes, I do see your point, and I love it. I’ve noticed the same thing around here. About a month back we had 3″ fall mid-day, and I was out about an hour later. The streets were all paved with slush, while all the businesses parking lots were already freshly-plowed. They have an incentive to clear it.
Of course maybe the service road is just more useful to the residents, whereas the main road is for commuters. Strictly speaking, this isn’t evidence that a “dependence” on city maintenance is the causal factor here. Indeed, the self-interest may even be why the city doesn’t maintain the service road (thus reducing taxes, at least potentially), in reverse of Radley’s causal chain.
Where I grew up, some asshole fenced in his easement which extended halfway across the road. When it was raining, that block was basically useless except to trap the unwary and lost. It stayed like that for years. I left for college just as the area hit a development boom, I wonder what happened to it… While I was growing up, at least one development project was halted by a barricade of good ol’ boy pickups manned by good ol’ boys with shotguns, but this can only last so long…
Also I think Bob has a point although he didn’t get to it until the end of his blustery down-rated posts.
I got it, thanx
Who dat?
Yay for another 6-8 inches tomorrow…
To offer an interesting counter example, where I live (Minnesota) that kind of snowfall is normal, and I experience the opposite. The city/county does an excellent job of plowing the public streets (Just about everything is clear in 24 hours), while many of the privately owned streets are full of snow for weeks on end. In many cases the private streets do not get cleared because the local residents refuse to chip in to hire a plow (”This is what I bought my SUV for!”), or the person contracted to do the job does not come along until the weekend.
Radley,
I live a bit North of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We got about 24 inches of snow between Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon one of my neighbors, who has a landscaping business, took his little skid loader and cleared two small city streets and an alley. He was promptly cited and fined by the City. Somebody didn’t like where he stacked the snow (same place as where the City would have plowed it) and called the Police. We’re waiting to see how much the fine will be, most of the neighborhood has pledged to contribute to help pay the fine.
I think what Radley is trying to point out is an example of people’s dependence on government and what happens when that dependence is removed. Where people expect the government to take care of something (the main road) nothing is done. Where they KNOW the government will not act, they take care of it themselves.
The point of the story isn’t about the snow or the practicality of clearing it off on a service road vs. a main road.
Tragedy Of The Commons, Blizzard Edition…
Radley points out, in a brilliantly simple way, the difference between what happens when people expect government to do something and what happens when they don’t. It’s called the tragedy of the commons.
where people expect the city to send eventua…
I live in a very rural area. The driveway/lane to my house connects to a county owned and maintained grave/dirt road which runs around a mile to a secondary state blacktop. Being a small rural county with a large number of small gravel and dirt roads it can take quite some time for a snowplow to ever get to my area. In fact, if the snow is less that 6 inches or so they don’t even bother.
When I’m finished with the lane to my house I go ahead and plow the mile of county road out to the blacktop and then plow back to my nearest neighbor’s house about a mile away. If I don’t get to it one of the neighbors who uses the road will generally run a tractor blade or snowplow down the road. It takes me perhaps another 30 or 45 minutes to plow out the mile of county road with an ATV plow maybe a little more if I have to do it with the tractor.
It’s just something we do just to be neighborly and to help each other out.
Didn’t take the time to read all of the comments, but my thought was that the road looked like it was shoveled, and not plowed.
We’d have done the same thing if there weren’t cars and houses on both sides of our street. A place to put it is the key.
“. Where the city has no history of sending a plow, and isn’t likely to, residents grabbed shovels, and cleared the road in 24 hours.”
Lets say 50 residents each spent an hour clearing the semi-private road. Being DC these are probably professionals who make say $65/hour on average. That hour then represents a total of $3250 in lost wages. On the other hand lets say the city plow costs $500/hour to run and it would take 10 minutes to do the street. Net cost to the residents for the city service $83, or a total savings of $3167.
Fine example of why we need more city services here.
P.S. I’m the bob who can’t avoid making a point without being a dick. Leave the other bob alone.
Bobzbob: A private contractor, running his own plow himself, might plow that road for $83 (depends on how long it is). It will cost most city road departments two or three times as much to do it with union labor, piles of paperwork, and a sinecure for the Mayor’s brother-in-law. In DC, it might be ten times as much.
And yes, even with the cost multiplied by 10, clearing it with shovels is inefficient compared to using a snow plow – but in DC, no one has a snow plow to spare for such a dinky job. Snowplows cost from about $35,000 (for a mid-size 4×4 pickup with a plow blade) to well over $100,000 (gravel truck with a front blade, scraper blade, and sander). Keeping such a piece of equipment in the garage for a few years until it is needed costs far more than turning out with snow shovels once.
Up here in Michigan: It’s likely that someone living on the street would have a plow blade on their 4×4 and would plow one lane on their way out to plow other people’s driveways. Not as neat a job as the shovelers did, but sufficient. If not, half the residents own snowblowers to clear their driveway, and if it’s deep enough to get an experienced winter driver stuck, when they know it will take a long time for the city to get around to the service road, they’ll each clear a few car lengths of road. But you won’t see the main roads unplowed for long; that’s the kind of stuff that gets the city council recalled.
I grew up at the end of a half-mile gravel road with just 4 houses on it. If the storm was bad enough to close the schools, the county would just plow the main roads until it was nearly over, and then catch up the rest, generally getting to our road just before the first school bus came through. So, if Dad could blast through the drifts and get out to work in his ‘65 Buick (two tons, rear wheel drive, and a grill sturdy enough to plow fresh snowfall) the neighbors could drive in his tracks. If not, after he cleared the driveway with the snowblower mounted on the rear of an ancient farm tractor, he’d continue down the road. The CPA/hobby farmer in the first house on the road would get out his brand new tractor with frontloader. And so on. Considering the value of a CPA’s and a college professor’s time, maybe it would have made more sense to chip in together for a contractor, but really, Dad’s pay didn’t depend on whether or not he made it to the first class of the day, nor would the CPA have got more customers.
[...] they’re right, then we should just wait obediently for the government to clear the spots. And we know how well that works. After that, we can all begin inefficiently queuing up for this scarce-though-communal resource all [...]