this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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I'm not unsympathetic to the fuckcars movement, but I have to ask about the road salt. When it snows and the roads are icy, what's supposed to happen? What's the plan for getting around, for getting to work, for getting to school? We can be using beet juice and other less impactful de-icing brines, but you still need the cars to get people where they need to go. Is the argument that people should stay home? Are we suggesting that colder climates just shouldn't be populated? Busses need the road salt, too. Trains and trolleys de-ice their tracks. Even urban areas where you can walk everywhere need to salt the sidewalks.
Where I live it's common to spread gravel on the snow to increase grip. And then, of course, it is expected that everyone has the appropriate shoes and bike tires to not slip.
And even when salt is used, cars need a lot more salt per person than other modes of transport does.
edit: clarification
When I lived near a volcanic area, they used the cinders for winter grip. Played hell on car paint. So, add that to the runoff.
Can I get a source on this? I'm not even sure what you mean by it, because salt clears active roadways as much as it does backroads, so how is this being measured "per person"?
You're talking about pedestrians, but what about non-pedestrian traffic? The roads are more than just avenues to get to the grocery store, they're also how the grocery store gets stocked with goods for rising out storms. It how the ambulance gets to you.
And what about the disabled or elderly? Can you get a wheelchair across the gravel?
This picture comes to mind:
For pedestrians and bikers, you need a lot less surface to deice, plus the lower speeds means it is not quite as vital to see all the snow gone directly. And yes, you will need roads for different purposes, but you would need a lot fewer of them, and with fewer lanes, if everyone wouldn't take the car. Also, for supplying stores, a lot of the things trucks do can easily be done by trains.
If it's cold enough to freeze the ground, I'm not riding my bike. First, having the right tires is one thing, but black ice and surprise potholes will eat your snow tires. Second, it's going to be too cold to be out in the cold air for the several hours you need to bike to school or work.
Busses require the same amount of roads as cars. So you're going to need the same amount of salt for busses. You might need less for sidewalks, but that's only because people cannot walk as far as they can drive.
If everyone who normally takes the car would switch to taking the bus, all of a sudden you'd only need one lane in places where you previously needed two or three, because cars are very space-inefficient, so that makes a big difference.
Also, it's not quite true that they'd require the same amount of roads. I don't know about where you're from, but where I live buses use about a quarter of the roads and you can still easily get anywhere by bus.
Additionally, salt isn't used for rail vehicles at all.
Yeah, I think the argument is that you shouldn't need the cars to get people where they need to go. This can be addressed two ways: either we don't use cars or we don't need to go (as far).
People should be able to travel with other modes that require less salt to deice, and cities could be built to not require cars for most trips. Salting sidewalks and bus lanes is better than salting those things plus roads and highways.
It's also worth considering that yes, people should be able to just stay home. People shouldn't be at risk of losing their job/home because they couldn't safely make it into work. Parents shouldn't have to rely on school as daycare.
I'd be curious to see if urban heat Island affects salt use. Maybe if we build dense enough, we don't even really need salt to cover 99% of the population.
This line of questioning is really important, and it's why I think there's no addressing our devastation of the environment without digging deep into the assumptions of our society.
Society, as we understand it today, requires all of us going to work and school every day, no matter the weather, otherwise it doesn't work. We can't live like that. It just doesn't work. We exist in the world, and our attempts to pretend like we are somehow apart or above it, that our daily lives shouldn't be impacted by it, are destructive. We just can't be in such a hurry all the time.
So yes, when the weather is bad, we need to slow down, focusing our efforts on our highest priority infrastructure, like ambulances, with everyone else taking a beat, or even pitching in. To do that, we need to rethink our society, because as things stand now, I agree with you, that's not really possible.
This is why I think degrowth and socialism are the only human way through the climate crisis. Capitalism is a death cult of infinite growth that forces each of us to contribute to our own destruction every day because we have to get to work to live every single day.
In Colorado we spray 'sand' which is still a chemical mix with actual sand, but less disruptive
This incidentally is why used school buses from Colorado are highly desirable in the skoolie community (a skoolie is a used school bus converted to a motorhome). In addition to the generally high-quality transmissions and retarders (essentially for handling mountainous terrain), the "sand" you use doesn't promote rusting-out of the bus bodies like road salt does. In a sense, though, this is still bad for the environment: the extended lifespan of these vehicles keeps them on the road spitting out carbon dioxide longer then they otherwise would.
You can use a brine salt solution before it precipitates to reduce overall salt usage by 60-70%.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/climate/road-salt-water-supply.html
Beet Juice? Do they remove the color or will everything be stained purple forever?
that's processed sugar beet waste, not literal beet juice
I don't think trains de-ice anything, no one's out there deicing train tracks - they are far too remote
Depends on the location, but there are a few different strategies for trains in cold weather.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/us/chicago-train-tracks-fire-trnd/index.html
Here in Canada there are definitely de-icing/ snow removal machines used on the tracks. Large propane heaters keep switches clear of ice so they can operate. Hi-rail trucks will go ahead of trains through the mountain passes to ensure the way is clear. During particularly bad snow storms they can use machines like this to clear the snow.
The trains will also release gravel on the rail to improve braking times.
There's literally a special type of train for clearing the tracks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City,_Montreal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(Toronto)