This week in Iowa we've been getting a lot of light snow, and it made me have some thoughts about which kinds of transportation are best (or least bad) in such conditions.
Surprising no one, I don't think it's the car that's best here. And that's a shame because I kinda had to drive in these conditions a lot this week.
1. Walking Is Actually Fine
The two main differences, to me, that mark the distinction between light and heavy snow are as follows:
A. The city plows for heavy snow and not light
B. Heavy snow is thick on the ground, while light snow is only slippery, not deep
Look at those tracks: not too hard to walk through.
Both of these make walking much easier in light snow than in heavy snow, the former because it means that there aren't huge ramparts of snow at the intersections blocking the crosswalk, and the second that you don't waste huge amounts of energy shoving through deep drifts or unplowed/unscooped sidwalks.
It's really not that much different than walking a bit in the rain--except that you usually don't actually get that wet in light snow.
Is it ideal to walk in light snow? No, but it's not actively bad, unlike heavy snow.
2. Driving and Biking Are Worse
The above two differences between light and heavy snow actually make driving worse, though, because an unplowed street is worse to drive on, and the slippery street (combined with most drivers not driving much differently, in my experience) means that there are high potentials for crashes and other dangerous situations.
Not exactly clear, is it?
Seriously, I'd rather drive in snow that's going to be >1 inch than snow that's going to be <.25 inch, even though the snow itself is not ideal.
Yes, blizzards are bad, but light snow is often blowing snow, which can create whiteout or near-whiteout conditions even with light snow.
Biking is also bad, because it also has major issues with slippery roads and unplowed streets mean drivers don't understand why you have to take up more of the lane. At least when there's a rampart of plowed snow some people do seem to recognize that a bike can't magically go where that snow is. In light snow, they expect you to be in the gutter even though that gutter is both snowed in and extra slippery because of things like grates in the road.
3. Transit Helps
This is the real takeaway here: because walking is not as much worse as driving or biking, transit is also better, relatively, because you can walk to and from it. And on top of that, transit in light snow has some other advantages over other transportation in light snow (not in ideal conditions, of course).
A. The worst part of driving or biking in light snow is being the one who has to control the vehicle--and in transit, you can hand that over to someone else, a trained professional.
B. A difficulty in plowing or otherwise treating roads for light snow is that it's inefficient given the low volume of snow--but when you can specifically target a bus route or train tracks, you don't need to commit large amounts of effort to clear the route to get good results.
Places like this intersection with two bus routes and a hospital are easy to prioritize.
C. And the fewer people on the roads, the safer it is in light snow--so transit, by taking people off the roads, makes it better for all of us.
Sure, there are times that you might want a personal vehicle in bad weather (primarily when you're going to a destination that you do not want to or cannot walk to in those conditions) but light snow is the opposite. In light snow, we should emphasize transit and walking, so that even those of us driving can benefit.
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