Putting brine on the roads seems to make way more sense than just salt. Easier on the wallet as well as the environment.
I vote for beet juice
In the old days before global warming, salt was never used on our roadways around these parts. Now days, salt is used on bridges and overpasses and other spots that might become icy. On less critical areas, some kind of antifreeze is used. Every time I smell that antifreeze, my reaction is to wonder if my vehicle has sprung a leak, but then I remember what time of year it is.
About the study on tire wear and it’s implication–so what–is there really an alternative? Some things can be studied to death, but there is nothing to be done about it. Well, not until levitation is perfected.
Steel wheels like a train
@magooch said:
In the old days before global warming, salt was never used on our roadways around these parts. Now days, salt is used on bridges and overpasses and other spots that might become icy. On less critical areas, some kind of antifreeze is used. Every time I smell that antifreeze, my reaction is to wonder if my vehicle has sprung a leak, but then I remember what time of year it is.About the study on tire wear and it’s implication–so what–is there really an alternative? Some things can be studied to death, but there is nothing to be done about it. Well, not until levitation is perfected.
Well, global warming isn’t remotely relevant here, but salt use has increased, I think mainly because traffic and the need for fast transportation has increased exponentially compared to those days. When my dad was a kid in upstate New York, they only used sand and cinders on the roads. I asked him how safe the roads were back then compared to now, and he just says “people just drove a whole lot slower in those days, and far fewer people needed to go anywhere.”
I agree about the tire-wear problem too. Consider people who buy true winter tires. Those tires have phenomenal traction, but they wear out in nothing flat compared to conventional tires. No matter what you do to increase traction, you get faster tire wear. There’s no point in wishing for something that can’t be accomplished.
I don’t know what that “antifreeze” spread on the roads might be, though. Everywhere I’ve been, the liquid that’s spread to keep the pavement clear is brine. Laws against dumping glycol-type materials are surely getting more strict, plus it seems like the stuff would be outlandishly expensive compared to brine. Where I live, the part of one creek that’s downstream of our airport was always open during all but the coldest weather, as far back as I remember. Finally, a few years ago, the airport constructed a holding pond to collect de-icing fluid from the ramp (that’s what they call the parking area for airliners, though to me the term makes absolutely no sense since it’s a flat parking lot), and ever since then the creek freezes in the same manner as all the other creeks in the area, so it’s no mystery what kept it from freezing during all those previous decades!
Road Surface Cuisinart
Sugar beet molasses,
and a cheesy brine.
No accountin’ taste in peoples’ haste
to get to work on time.
Scent sick-sweet smell of anti-freeze,
to Mrs. Butterworth’s pancakes,
in rush for milk and t-p like silk,
with fall of the first few flakes,
Best get powerwasher blastin’ up,
for now it’s a sticky brine,
that soon corrodes above gas tank loads
metal hang-straps and brake lines.
(Oh for return to sand-cinder prime!)
(When metal hung-in for some time.)
The reason it is important to study these types of impacts is so we learn the true cost and impact. Just because you or I don’t see a solution doesn’t mean some bright person can’t come up with one.
The root cause to the magnitude of these impacts is the increasing human population. That’s the real baseline driving these things. The elephant in the room most everyone ignores. If we don’t wise up and try to stop the growth… Well…the problem will solve itself, and all living things will pay an inordinately high price for the solution. In fact the earth is paying the down payment already with mass extinctions and massive impacts to even the remotest environments like the Antarctic.
Oh how deeply covered in sand are so many billions of heads!
@Guideboatguy
Good point on the wear rate for true winter tires, but then again what you are paying for is softer rubber that’ll hold traction in colder temps. You can either wear them down faster or get them mounted and off again each season, but either way it costs something. Bottom line is you are making a choice to pay money for a higher level of safety in winter conditions.
I feel like there is more salt out there, but I also live in an area where there has been a significant increase in traffic even on secondary roads. A bunch of what used to be dirt back roads have been paved. The increase in salt is likely primary the increase in the traffic load and percent of paved road.
Later add - Same as bnystrom below. If I get the tires off the car in spring soon enough, I generally get three seasons out of one set of snows.
I remember the days in college in the '60’s in upstate NY. The real upstate by Potsdam… Sand cinders and rolling down the road to make a hardpack for the sand and cinders to adhere to.
No plowing to pavement. Actually you couldn’t as the frost heaves were frequent. And of course you can’t plow to dirt on dirt roads without gouging them up.
People now expect bare pavement and when they don’t get it whine and complain rather than just slow down… We live in an area of dirt roads and visitors here always expect plow to the surface. As we have to pay for plowing and road grading and repair ( not the town) we leave a good bit of snow on top of the dirt
@castoff said:
The reason it is important to study these types of impacts is so we learn the true cost and impact. Just because you or I don’t see a solution doesn’t mean some bright person can’t come up with one.The root cause to the magnitude of these impacts is the increasing human population. That’s the real baseline driving these things. The elephant in the room most everyone ignores. If we don’t wise up and try to stop the growth… Well…the problem will solve itself, and all living things will pay an inordinately high price for the solution. In fact the earth is paying the down payment already with mass extinctions and massive impacts to even the remotest environments like the Antarctic.
Oh how deeply covered in sand are so many billions of heads!
Malthus postulated that a long time ago. And while WE worry about long term, India, China, and many other nations could care less.
@kayamedic said:
… People…whine and complain
Of course that’s when we find a solution to the physical problem or a band aide for the political fall out. The problem is when the solution/band aide causes more problems. Sometimes we can do with less.
I get 3 winters out of a set of snow tires, the same amount of time I typically get out of a set of summer tires. I’m not going to sacrifice my winter safety for the sake of keeping a small amount of rubber off the road. Besides, it’s a lot more environmentally responsible to drive a 35 mpg, front-wheel-drive car with snow tires than some gas-guzzling SUV that takes a lot more energy and materials to build, creates more pollution in the process and throughout it’s life, plus consumes more fuel, oil and repair parts over it’s lifespan. With good snow tires on all four corners, you don’t need all-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive for driving on winter roads. BTW, I live in NH and have been driving in the snow for over 40 years.
Yes! What Castoff said!
When I was in high school people used to write books about it. The Population Bomb. People used to talk about it and debate it. How many people can this planet support? The elephant and gorilla are both still sitting comfortably on the couch as far as I can see.
A vegetarian buddy of mine recently talked about how great it would be for the environment if we all ate the way he does. I replied that we could eat any damn thing we pleased if there weren’t so many of us. He replied that some smart predictor-type people say the earth can support billions more of us. I replied that the melting glaciers and rising sea level tell me that there are too many of us now.
I truly think population will be cut down severely in the next 30 years. Two many weapons and two many rouge players. Maybe nothing human survives if it’s two major powers tangling. I remember duck and cover as a kid. I remember listening to fire sirens at night and saying did a nuclear war start.
@bnystrom said:
I get 3 winters out of a set of snow tires, the same amount of time I typically get out of a set of summer tires. I’m not going to sacrifice my winter safety for the sake of keeping a small amount of rubber off the road. Besides, it’s a lot more environmentally responsible to drive a 35 mpg, front-wheel-drive car with snow tires than some gas-guzzling SUV that takes a lot more energy and materials to build, creates more pollution in the process and throughout it’s life, plus consumes more fuel, oil and repair parts over it’s lifespan. With good snow tires on all four corners, you don’t need all-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive for driving on winter roads. BTW, I live in NH and have been driving in the snow for over 40 years.
That sounds good, especially if those snow tires are true winter tires (most are not). Just curious, though, what “three seasons” adds up to in mileage, since without the mileage figure the results aren’t clear. I know people who can’t get more than 60,000 miles out of a set of tires because they drive aggressively. I drive gently and it’s been ages since I’ve gotten less than 90,000 on tires. The last set I replaced on my own car was good for 135,000, and they were a somewhat aggressive tread (in other words, not a high-mileage tire).
@Guideboatgut
How is a snow tire not a winter tire? Everyone winter set I have ever had mounted has softer rubber and much thicker treads, with an aggressive tread pattern. I just looked and the usual nomeclature is winter/snow tires on web sites. Just to keep this conversation a bit less confusing…
@Celia said:
@Guideboatgut
How is a snow tire not a winter tire? Everyone winter set I have ever had mounted has softer rubber and much thicker treads, with an aggressive tread pattern. I just looked and the usual nomeclature is winter/snow tires on web sites. Just to keep this conversation a bit less confusing…
Yeah, I see what you mean. I’m talking about tires that are MADE for use in snow, and nothing else. These are the tires that wear out at a terrific rate, but have phenomenal traction in snow. Most people have never even heard of them. I have only met two people in my life who actually use them (though in all fairness regarding that observation, I don’t think they have even been available until fairly recently). With these tires, you can get pretty close to a normal degree of traction on fresh snow that has most people driving very gently to avoid slipping.
I don’t think of snow tires as ‘winter tires’ because they can be good for all sorts of other things, all year around. Most tires with winter tread last quite a long time when used on bare pavement, but it would be a huge waste of money to use a true winter tire all year long.
That’s as much as I know or think I know about “winter tires”, based only on talking to a guy I know who swears by them. I think the ones he uses are “Blizzak” from Bridgestone, but I’m not sure. Read about them and you’ll see they are a completely different breed than pain-Jane snow tires. Oh, and with regular snow tires, there’s another clue printed right on the sidewall. Every plain snow tire I’ve ever seen is actually rated for “mud and snow”, which tells you that year-round use is within the design parameters.