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Clear roads are no entitlement
(by Dave Lange - February 04, 2009)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Clear roads are no entitlement
Last Wednesday's snowstorm, which measured 9.4 inches officially at Cleveland Hopkins Airport and 11 inches in western Geauga County, was somewhat unusual due to the direction from which it came.
Canton and other points south of Cleveland, as well as the western suburbs around the airport, received more snow than they are accustomed to, but it wasn't extraordinary for the Snowbelt east of Cleveland. The official tally at the airport is around 55 inches of snow in an average winter, while the higher elevations subject to the Lake Erie effect in Geauga County typically receive more than 100 inches.
On last week's snow day, I was thankful for my four-wheel-drive vehicle. I'm always thankful that my workplace is just three miles from home. With area schools closed and very little traffic on the semirural roads I travel, I found my drive and the scenery to be enjoyable. The hardworking plow drivers were struggling just to keep up with the continuing snowfall, much less effectively cover every trouble spot with the salt that has become uncharacteristically scarce and costly this winter.
After arriving at the office, I had several telephone conversations with people whose travels to work were much further than mine and who encountered much heavier traffic, which turned their commutes into nail-biting adventures. By and large, though, they took it in stride. This is Northeast Ohio, after all.
Since October, when area communities began to issue cautions about road-salt shortages and skyrocketing prices, there has been a lot of complaining from the public. Some people have the notion that they are entitled to clear roads from their driveways to their destinations at any time of day, regardless of the weather conditions.
But the U.S. Constitution doesn't say anything about citizens' rights to have roads at all, let alone compel the government to keep them cleared of ice and snow. Americans' fantastic but socialistic system of roads and highways is a privilege, not an entitlement.
Due in no small degree to winter's frigid temperatures and heavy snowfalls, the maintenance of those roads and highways is much more expensive in regions such as Northeast Ohio than it is in most of the country. But this region cannot count on the federal government to provide commensurate funding for those huge added costs.
It is through the generosity of local taxpayers in maintaining, plowing and salting those roads that people are able to live comfortably in distant suburbs while commuting conveniently to jobs in the city. Every extra tax dollar spent on roads is one less dollar available for education, police and fire protection, parks and recreation, health and human services, environmental protection and myriad other programs that citizens expect from government.
So when many communities adopted policies for this winter that include limited salting between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., spot salting when practical, giving priority to intersections, hills, curves, bridges and school zones, and keeping main roads as clear as possible before turning attention to side streets, it made perfect sense. Most people can avoid driving during the worst snowstorms, and all of us can take it easy when we do venture on the roads.
Those who can't live with that are welcome to move closer to their jobs and to use public transportation. Or they can beg for higher road taxes.
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