On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, ian Butler wrote:

> I want to live in Houghton!  I'd gladly trade sandy streets for an intact
> vehicle. :)

They did use some salt, but reserved it mostly for intersections.
Interestingly enough, one county to the south the roads were salted
heavily.  I think this is purely a matter of the county road commission's
philosophy, and probably varies all over the state.

> Michigan, and southeast Michigan in particular, seem to have a vested
> interest in rotting out cars, roads, bridges, and vegetation.

Yeah, they seem to use about three times the amount of salt I'm used to,
down here -- the slightest dusting of snow incites them to smother the
roads with rock salt.  The only thing I can figure is that they just don't
trust people's winter driving skills in this area.  Traffic is also
higher, which probably makes a difference.

I'm sure cost has something to do with it too.  Rock salt is cheaper than
any alternative chemical, and probably cheaper than sand in some places.
In Houghton County they could get stamp sand basically for free -- it's a
nuisance material there, you can't grow anything on it, and it doesn't
pack well enough to make good fill.  But there are still costs involved in
cleaning it up at the end of the winter.

> winter precipitation as the southeast here, and they just used sand.  Salt
> wouldn't have done any good in the really cold weather anyway.

This is probably a big reason why Houghton and Keweenaw counties don't use
as much of it.  Up there, when you put salt on the road, there's always
the risk you'll make matters worse by turning packed snow into glare ice.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
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