Lubbock Starting to Pay the Price for Poor Snow Removal

Have you heard the phrase "kicking the can down the road"? Well, that's what Lubbock did by not engaging in quicker snow removal.

I understand politics, and I understand those of you who think you are taxed to death. I think we can all agree that if smarter decisions were made with our money, we probably wouldn't complain as much.

Here's a little science for you (probably more than you learn in Texas schools).

When there's snow and ice, it gets into cracks in the road. It expands when it re-freezes and, boom, bigger cracks. These bigger cracks then repeat the process all over, and before you know it, you're losing a tire or knocking your car out of alignment.

One of my Facebook friends drives a taxi. He hit a pothole and got a flat. They sent another taxi to pick up his fair, and guess what? He hit the same pothole and got a flat. This is just a simple story of the hazards that are starting to pop up.

Lubbock has two snowplows (soon to be three). Lubbock is 123.6 square miles. (Sorry, the source doesn't discern City or County. Either way, its big.) At some point in the future, the idea of buying more snow removal equipment will come up. Without a doubt, some politician will step up and say we don't need any more equipment, that it was a 'once-in-a-decade' event and so on in order to make points with voters.

When they do this, they are "kicking the can down the road" and will leave us in a situation like the one we were in after a blizzard dumped 10+ inches in Lubbock: with snow covered roads and (eventually) busted-up roads that we'll have to pay for anyways.

In short: You're going to pay the money for salt or hot mix asphalt, for snow plows or for road repair equipment. It just makes sense to take care of what we got rather than to let it go to hell and repair it over and over again.