Why is WSDOT so clueless?

This is a rant. It is a rant I have been trying to contain for months. Seriously, why is WSDOT so clueless? At the most, it is only 30 miles of road on I-90 that ever has snow; how difficult is it really to keep that clear? In the midwest and CO they manage pretty well with far more roads to worry about. Buy more plows! And maybe learn how to actually plow to the roadbed, instead of leaving a thin highly compacted layer? <br> And avalanches, while difficult to control, certainly occur at specific locations, and there should be plenty of time during the summer to build serious retaining walls, right? <br> Lastly, there is this travesty called "traffic flow mangement" which does nothing other than make a tough driving situation much, much worse by making lots of people change lanes for no good reason. <br><br>OK, end of rant. Thanks for listening!<br>

I have always been suprised at how much better a job of road clearance gets done on the Mt Baker highway, a dead end road, than on I-90, a national superhighway. I believe you can always get to Baker with any car and any tires, given the sand they put down on the scraped road surface.

Seems to be worse this year than it used to. I've always thought of highway 2 being the "gnarly" one that gets closed all the time, but this year it's been I-90, while highway 2 stays open.<br>(ok, not the case right now, but most of the time)<br><br>I swear I've driven past snowplows in a snow storm on I-90, that were moving, without actually doing any plowing.<br><br>

I remember the good old days of cruising to the passes in Country Squire wagons and LTD sedans when it was a free for all. Get there if you can, any way you can. The smart people picked up a couple studded tires at Sears and put some rocks in the trunk for added traction. Most didn't and ended up getting their Toughskins soaked trying to push the car to the skiing.<br><br>Issaquah was a dairy and an airstrip nestled in the forested foothills. North Bend...well, the song "Dueling Banjos" comes to mind .<br><br>Progress, I guess

I'm not familiar with WSDOT, but I am familiar with ODOT and CalTrans. And I am continually impressed with how bad of a job ODOT does compared to CalTrans, especially since ODOT has so much less road to worry about. What I really wish ODOT would do is setup chain control checkpoints. A bunch of people in OR ignore the chain requirements putting them and others at risk. In California if there's a chain control, 7 out of 10 times CalTrans sets up a checkpoint to ensure you have chains. If ODOT did the same I bet there would be a handful of more people alive today and many less accidents.<br><br>I'm sure it would be fruitless, but this issue has bugged me enough that I've considered writing my representatives in Salem.

lots of trucks on I-90. That may have something to do with it. A couple of trucks spinning out could really mess things up.