Heavy snows

Just rode home through the relatively heavy snow that's been falling this afternoon. With my spiked tires, it's been helping keep me on the road. Actually, once I got west of Liberty and Stadium, the quality of the snow-plowing had gone down a bit, the cars (many of which didn't seem to have snow/winter tires) slowed down, and I was able to cycle with the flow of traffic.

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I originally had the idea that it might be faster for me to take the bus to the corner of Jackson and Wagner, and then cycle the 1.5 miles from there along roads with wide shoulders (as opposed to Liberty Road, which lacks a shoulder on certain stretches between Stadium and Wagner). However, when I got to the Blake Transit Center, none of the buses were running on time (and the 12B didn't pass me as I rode up Liberty, so they must have really been backed up). Still, looking at the otherwise bleak parking lot across the street, I noticed that the snow softened the otherwise harsh, so I decided to take a photo:

Yes, yes, I know that it still doesn't look nice - I mean there are few ways in which the large air conditioning ducts running up to the top of the building - but it looks nicer (to me) than when it's barren and gray and black.

Turning the corner onto Liberty, I noticed that drivers were doing something smart for a change, and weren't trying to accelerate quickly down the stretch -- since tire-spin would make this difficult on the acceleration, and it would be extra difficult to stop on the snowy roads. Still, with this being the first major snowfall this year, I thought it would be a nice thing to photograph. I would have (and probably should have) taken video of cars trying to start up the hill at Liberty and Ashley - one of the steeper road sections in the downtown area. It's funny because cars heading east at that intersection stop on the slope and need to accelerate from a full stop up to the flat of Ashley Street and beyond. However, most cars usually just sit there spinning their back wheels, slowly fish-tailing back and forth. I don't understand why people don't instead choose to use William Street to get up to Main, since one doesn't have to stop anywhere on the slope as you head toward Main Street (those heading north on Ashley, though, will be kinda skuppered at this intersection, though). Maybe next time... maybe next time.