Today's journey was eastbound along US Highway 14 from almost South Dakota to Mankato. We'd had a bit of snow and wind monday and tuesday, but nothing approaching blizzard standards. I'd driven home from observing the recount in Marshall on monday and over to the library in Tyler on tuesday with no problems and only travelling 5 to 10 miles an hour slower than normal.
So 24 hours after the snow stopped I hit highway 14 this morning. Now by traditional Minnesota standards 24 hours is enough time to clear the roads a couple times over after snowstorms. Heck, back when we had a democratic governor I'd often head out on my run with the truck with the snow still falling and an inch of compacted snow and ice on the road; 8 hours later when I was headed back on the same road all the ice and snow was gone and I was greeted by bare pavement. Those we're the days when the plows worked 24 hours a day and travelled in packs. Minnesota set the standard in highway maintainence back then- I still fondly recall the plows out in the middle of a clear night knocking back the drifts and sanding and salting the icy patches. We even had semitrailer "Flowboy" salt spreading tractor trailer rigs working the metro freeways because a mere dump truck couldn't carry enough salt.
Back to reality...
Food is southwest Minnesota's business, same for western Iowa and the Dakotas. Marshall, the nearest big town to me, is half college town and half food factory, with an ethanol plant to boot. Most of the trucks on our highways are hauling agricultural commodities or products- feed, frozen foods, grains, ethanol, etc.. Same with the railroads- grain trains outnumber coal trains on the BNSF, and the DM&E would curl up and die without ag products.
Now granted, some of this stuff is in no hurry to get anywhere- we get a big blast of grains every harvest that usually takes a year or more to work it's way through the system, so we mostly want it to move in a timely manner to make room for more. But delay trucks serving a food processing plant, ethanol plant, etc. by a couple hours and you'll shut the place down, putting hundreds if not thousands out of work. But that's exactly what the republicans are threatening to do by underfunding our transportation infrastructure.
Back to today's drive... For 100 miles from Florence to Mankato I had to slow several times each mile for compacted snow and ice that had blown across the highway a day earlier and still hadn't been salted or plowed off. Now in a VW Golf TDI with front wheel drive and anti lock brakes this ain't no big deal... But with a pair of half empty thirteen and a half inch tall double trailers it raises all unholy hell with the schedule. Or scarier yet, the light truck I saw pulling a trailer with two sheds on it- a veritable sail on wheels. He had to slow way down on the icy stretches and was still scary to watch, and several trucks were stuck behind him for miles. He'd probably sat home the previous two days waiting for the roads to be cleared, and the repugs and there underfunded MNDOT had failed him.
Oh, forgot to mention we've got another big industry out here- renewable energy. Within a few miles of my Buffalo Ridge home two new wind farms are being erected, and they're racing to get them done by the end of the year. So I'm sitting in the McDonald's in New Ulm using the WiFi and an escort car goes by with the low clearance checking pole, then a state trooper. That's my alert to look up and get a look at the actual truck and load- a pretty much standard (around here) 13 axle tractor-jeep-trailer-steerable booster outfit. Yup, that's right, 13 axles, and only two of them are driven. On the west end of New Ulm is a steep upgrade, and it was still icy enough that a 5 axle tractor trailer rig with two driven axles could only slowly climb it. Wonder if that 13 axle rig made it up that hill? And if they made it up that one, did they make it over the still ice and snow covered hump backed bridge over the railroad in Balaton? Can't even get a good run at that one, with slippery curves at both ends of the bridge to slow down for. Suffice to say, Minnesota's wind energy indurstry ain't gonna survive either if our transportation infrastructure ain't maintained better.
But maybe I shouldn't complain (disclosure: I own a few railroad stocks). By undermaintaining our public highway infrastructure the republicans are driving freight to the railroads. When the roads get bad enough, even DM&E's 40 MPH single track starts to look attractive. A bit farther north along Minnesota highway 19 a few shippers have even switched to the parallel 10 MPH Minnesota Prairie Line. Rail's efficency makes it the obvious choice for it to be the bulk of our future transportation network, and the republicans with their short sighted budget cutting are hastening that era by neglect.
Or maybe the republicans really believe "private enterprise" will build a toll road along two lane US 14?