In Stockholm, a Proposal to Make Snow Plowing Priorities Better for Women

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2014-01-04 22:36

Article here. Excerpt:

'In Stockholm, the depths of winter can stretch out over nearly half the calendar year. Last winter, the first reported snowfall came on October 25, and the last sighting wasn't until April 20.

With six months of potential snow, the task of keeping the city's commuters moving and working can be a real challenge for local government. At the moment, Stockholm uses a relatively standard snow-clearing strategy that differs little from what other harsh-winter cities have chosen to do. They focus their plows first on major thoroughfares, then on downtown areas close to major workplaces and construction sites, and finally move on to smaller roads, neighborhoods, and schools.

But some in Stockholm's city government have begun to suspect that these longstanding strategies may not best serve all of the city's residents. By focusing on city-center workplaces and construction sites, the Green Party's Daniel Helldén suggests, the city is implicitly ignoring the places that "vulnerable groups," including women and families, frequent most often. His solution? Something he's calling "gender-equal plowing."
...
The concept of this realignment is being sold as a sort of feminist proposal, but also as good overall public policy. "You have to look at how a modern city functions today. There are completely different transportation patterns around," Helldén told the Svenska Dagbladet (translation from Sveriges Radio). The changes, which would also include an emphasis on transit hubs and bike lanes, might make even more sense in a city where, as of 2006, less than half of the region's commuters drove a private car (and that proportion has since shrunk considerably)...'

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Comments

I can't say I know about what is happening in terms of transportation issues in Stockholm. I will say I am familiar with what things look like in places that get lots of snow, as well as those that do not (lived in both).

Whether focusing on highways or local/urban neighborhood roads has a lot to do with the locality of emergency services. That is, when someone is having a heart attack, is there a fire station with EMS-trained people or an ambulance company close enough that trained help can get to them -- *if* the roads are plowed? This is a fair concern for city-dwellers, and so, if they have those service dispatch locations fairly close to people in the city anywhere they live, it makes good public policy to ensure the local roads are plowed first. But what if there needs to be a route cleared for EMS/fire to come in from the suburbs? This is now a very real issue for a lot of American cities. (Again, can't speak for Stockholm.) As US cities have had to cut public services due to collapsed budgets and debt burdens, they are increasingly relying on "mutual aid" assistance from suburban EMS and fire companies, assuming the city is lucky enough to have better-heeled suburbs from which to get the help. It used to be the other way around. My how times change.

But notice I am speaking of priorities around things like emergency services. This article is saying the priority ought to be around being able to get to grocery stores and day care centers. Hmmm. Well, OK, I see that concern, too. But I also know that the typical supermarket, whether in the US or Europe, maybe has enough stock to last two days of the typical shopping foot traffic. One thing that clearing highways does is allows trucks carrying all the stuff we need/want to get into the cities or distribution centers around cities (some cities don't let 18-wheelers into them because their streets are too narrow; Philadelphia, PA, for example) where large vans or smaller trucks bring cargo to particular places.

Food: An important necessity. Comes in second only to water, with clothing and shelter coming in third. Toilet paper is fourth. :)

Anyway, while I think it's fine these people saying it's about time to reconsider such things as their snow-plowing priorities, it is simply ridiculous that they are framing it in any way, shape, or form, as a "women's issue". Really, it isn't. It's a matter of public policy and how resources will be prioritized for utilization based on how well the people's overall interests are served. It's a fair complaint to say that it seems employers are getting deference if areas with business/workplace centers are getting cleared before other places. Money talks, as they say, and if that's a factor, maybe someone needs to tell it like it is. But to frame it as a "gendered concern"? Barf. Really, they can do better than that.

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-01-06 00:24

I agree with your comment Matt, it seems silly to frame it as a woman's issue. Why not just say, officials need to evaluate and prioritize snow plowing so it is more efficient based on emergency needs and road usage.

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Submitted by Kris on Mon, 2014-01-06 01:22