Cruel cruel winter

One of the joys of living in Minneapolis is the number of bad drivers. It's a constant source of amusement and wonder to watch them go; throw in some adverse driving conditions and you're set for the week. Now as I mentioned earlier this week there were a couple of big snowstorms that hit town while I was in Chicago. These were some pretty serious snowfall, businesses and the university were closed down, overall about 3 feet or more of snow fell. Of course by the time I got back I'd missed most of the fun, only the secondary roads hadn't been cleaned up. Sure the cabby was nice enough to take us sliding along a few of them as we made our way back from the airport, but it just doesn't compare to those conditions on a highway.

Well, I've been back about a week now and all the roads are clear, but the snowbanks are still there. But who needs snowbanks now, without the snow on the roads the shitty drivers don't have a chance of hitting pedestrians until they step out into the street, and that's just making it harder on them and less entertaining for me. Or course the sidewalk surfaces that vary from bare cement, to hard or soft packed snow and slick ice so there is plenty of falling to be witnessed. On top of that almost nobody thought to shovel out a path to cross the street. It's like the people that live on the corners only walk around the block. As a result there are paths made by people walking up and over the snowbanks, these get really slick and are far from level, but that's just the way it is.

The real fun though comes at the bus stops. Nobody bothered to clear a path for the riders to get on and off. And sure it's fun to watch an old lady try to get from the top of the snowbank onto the bus steps, but have you ever seen a blind guy try to find his way over a frozen snowbank and into a bus? Sheer comic bliss I tell you!

So I was a bit worried when I saw a pair of city workers with shovels at a bus stop the other morning. I was worried that someone was about to do something to stop little old ladies from having to jump from the snowbank to the bus stairs. Fortunately I was worrying over nothing, these city workers weren't there to clear a path to the bus; they were digging out the snow around the garbage cans. Because clearly the wast amounts of pedestrian traffic in the winter was filling the bins at the expected rates. I'm so glad to be living in a city with the right priorities.