No snow clearing this winter

[Steve O]

Chris Slatt posted this message from David Goodman of the Arlington County Staff on the Arlington County Bicycle Advisory Committee list serve this morning:

From: David Goodman
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:33 PM
Subject: re:Status of snow plowing plan for Arlington’s Trails?

Dear Mr. Slatt,

I’ve been asked by the County Manager to respond to your question about the status of Arlington’s snow operations plan vis a vis trail clearing. As you stated, staff did prepare a proposal last winter for the County Manager’s consideration that would expand the County’s snow clearing operations to include 13 miles of high-priority trails. Generally, the proposal was to fund, for a single winter, a test program that would have paid a contractor approximately $10,000 per snow event to clear 13 miles of priority trails. (During a typical winter – if there ever is such a thing – snow clearing operations are mobilized about ten times.) Thus this proposal would have reflected an approximately $100,000 budget commitment.

Given the County’s financial status at that time, it was decided that this could not be accommodated in the FY2014 budget proposal. Nonetheless, the proposal will be raised again during this next fiscal year’s budget discussions, taking place in the coming months. If the budget change request is accepted, I will be sure to brief the Bicycle Advisory Committee accordingly.

Thank you for your comments.

David

David J Goodman – RA, AICP
Bicycle & Pedestrian Programs Manager
2100 Clarendon Boulevard, suite 900
Arlington, VA 22201
703.228.3709

As I have told the committee before, if Arlington continues to insist that it somehow deserves to be considered for a Gold Bicycle-Friendly Community certification from the League of American Bicyclists, I will personally go down to their offices and lobby to have it rolled back to Silver. No community that treats its bicycle and ped transportation corridors as second-class to its roads deserves to consider itself somehow among the elite communities in the United States.

Topic

[guga31bb]

Me too!

[lordofthemark]

And myself as well, though I do not have a grad degree in Econ (MBA who returned from the dark side)

[mstone]

Must…resist…economist jokes

[KLizotte]

Ha! The economists should form their own team on Freezing Saddles.

The fact that we might require the assistance of engineers on the trail is of no consequence….

[Author]

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