Junior theater major
This state, along with the suburbs of Washington, often gets a bad rap when it comes to snow days. Every time there is a snow-related school or government closure, my Facebook feed fills up with friends from the Midwest and New England talking about how they “still would’ve had school back home,” that they “never had snow days” and so on. Even President Obama took a jab at D.C. snow days in 2009. But what people don’t seem to realize is that we don’t close stuff down just because of snow. We close stuff down because of the commute.
Imagine, if you will, the Capital Beltway: a hellish nightmare of a freeway that can range from total gridlock to a highly competitive NASCAR-race-meets-demolition-derby mad dash that continues around and around into infinity. Now imagine that in the snow. Awful, right?
Washington is a city filled with nearly countless nonprofit organizations, domestic and international interest groups, and, you know, the governing body of our country. Commuters to our nation’s capital, many of whom commute from this state and Virginia — and even from as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey — deal with the nation’s third most extreme, longest commute, according to Forbes.
Commuters drive themselves into the city or take Metrorail, Metrobus, or MARC, along with plenty of other services. Sometimes they drive long distances just to use public transportation. Keeping traffic flowing at a decent pace is a high priority for the governments maintaining the roads. That’s why there are seemingly constant updates to the highway system. The Intercounty Connector between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Virginia’s express lanes on the Beltway are both recent attempts to reduce congestion. Unfortunately, even with these expansions, snow and sleet become a huge safety issue on these highways. Slick roads jam-packed with commuters are pretty simple recipes for disaster.
The federal government and other organizations in the city know this. They understand that many of their employees have to commute a considerable distance to come to work. Though the amount of snow accumulation might not be as great or greater than the totals many cities in the Midwest see, those cities likely do not have the same density of commuters flowing in and out every weekday.
A similar reasoning explains why this university tends to close often during snow days. We have a large number of students, staff and faculty members who commute to the campus. And their safety, based on the timing of the snowfall and the quality of the roads, influences the school’s closures.
No, we don’t get the frequent and dense snowfall that some places in the country do. And maybe we could better prepare the roads for oncoming weather, though the effort that cities and counties devote is already monstrous. But those other places don’t have the massive intake of commuters that the D.C. area does. So next time you want to talk smack about how we handle our snow days, ask yourself if you would want to be stuck on the Beltway in that weather.
Sean Forsythe is a junior theatre major. He can be reached at sforsythedbk@gmail.com.
