We went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival screening last night in Edmonton. The host from Banff was asking if the roads in Edmonton do not get ploughed because he had so much trouble getting around with his little Toyota. Oh no, we are really cheap here, don't pay taxes, don't need any services. We are all born survivors! A second plough is in the ten-year-plan, joked my hubby. F*** this place, is my opinion. Edmonton has 4800 km of roads, double this for two lanes and you have 9600 km, right. In a city that has winter for at least 5 months a year they should keep a depot with 20 ploughs, each of them would have to plough 480 km. If you have them out on the roads once it starts snowing and keep them running 24/7 until is stops snowing (480 km in 24 hours seems feasible to me, if you don't allow any build-up) no single road should be covered in snow to the point where cars get stuck and need to be shovelled out! I mean, once the charge for this service is in your property taxes, it is in your taxes - people moan once and then forget about it. With the current system though people moan every time it snows ... and don't get anywhere either. With regards to the environment I can't tell for sure what's better. On one hand you get fuel burnt by "many" snow ploughs but cars driving on clean roads require less fuel, on the other hand you get fewer ploughs burning fuel but every car out burns more trying to get through and people drive bigger cars in order to make it through the winter. I think buses are not too much affected because even if people can't drive poor road conditions don't help transit be effective. Buses get stuck in snow too or are behind schedule. The safety perspective clearly requires ploughed roads.
Have you noticed there's more and more people with walkers and crutches around? I was wondering how all those people get around in winter. My husband remembered an article in 2008 that pointed out while we gained 10 years in life expectancy we only gained 2 years in health. The desire of medicine to keep us all alive seems to backfire as our health systems get more and more overwhelmed and more and more people end up in long-time care unable to look after themselves. Having old people drive is not a good idea either. Traffic, especially in cities, is so busy and crazy that old people can't possibly catch all that's happening. That's my impression when see them driving across pedestrian crossings without blinking an eye on those pedestrians. Having them take the bus is not great either, there's only so many spots for people with walkers, crutches and strollers. In Edmonton they are frequently occupied. The over 90 years of age, somewhat confused mother of a friend of mine once almost burnt down her house when her daughter was gone because she had the idea of wanting to cook something. Since then her daughter has almost never left her alone. That's a huge commitment, one that not many people are willing to take anyway. Life's meant to be a joy not suffering. Once dead, cremation should be the way to go - there's not enough space for coffins of 7 billions people and more.
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