Slip, slidin’ away: Road crews are doing what they can to scratch away at ice
January 6, 2011 at 6:00 pm in Alexandria Echo Press
Driving on area roads right now is a slippery adventure. It’s hard to stop and start rolling at intersections. Fishtailing vehicles and minor fender-benders are a common sight. Continue Reading

Its a joke at the amount of sand that gets put down at intersections. The way most of them look, you could just as well use none at all. Ten feet before a sign does nothing. If a car is already sitting there, what do the other three cars behind do? When some of the roads finally get roughed up a bit and you can actually get some traction, they end up getting scraped down to the bare ice and you start all over again. Where does that get anybody?
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BOGUS!! Thats what I have to say about the Alexandria Street Depts LAME excuses for the crummy roads. This has been the WORST season as long as I can remember when the roads have been so terrible. The ONLY place you see the MOST sand, is on the Lake Agnes road heading to the Alex Street Dept offices. The company I work for has called them DAILY, numerous times, and told them about so many “hot spots” for very dangerous icy conditions and they STILL hadn’t come out to sand it. Personally, I think they have skimped on the sand and salt and could care less. I myself watched a plow truck this morning around 6:30 am on Broadway plowing the road so close that there were sparks flying everywhere, Thats just insane!! They are shaving these roads down over and over to the point where they’re sheer ICE. NEVER, in all of the winter places where I have lived, have I ever seen such a pathetic lack of road care like I see here in Alexandria….sorry to say. Last winter, as I drove down Broadway street around 7am, it was snowing very badly, Broadway had NOT been plowed yet, we had about 5 inches on it, and as I drove by the Coffee Pot cafe, there were 5 snow plow trucks having breakfast and coffee…while the roads were terrible!! So, dont give me you silly song and dance about how you just cant put the stuff down cause its too cold..you know you can, but your just not doing it. One day, someone is going to get really hurt, and hire a lawyer to sue the pants off this entire city for negligence on cleaning the roads. and when they do, I will support them in any way. I’m so tired of the dangerous roads in this town. SOMEONE NEEDS to step up to the plate and do something, instead of putting such a lame excuse in the paper looking for some sympathy!! Do your jobs correctly, PERIOD.
Signed, totally disgusted!!!
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put some sand and salt down, some one will get hurt, its just a matter of time. maybe we need new people to ran the department
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6th Ave- east of the railroad tracks is still solid ice. Nokomis St. south of 3rd Ave all the way past the Tech School is solid ice. It looks as if absolutely nothing has been put down on it. They say it is to expensive to put to much salt down. Dont you think on roads such as those that maybe an effort should be made? There seems to be more effort put in such petty things in this town than what should really be at the top of the list.
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2 weeks now since the roads got bad and cars are driving into businesses downtown because they cant stop on the solid ice roads. Maybe that 90% sand to 10 % salt should be more like 50/50. is it really that hard to figure out?
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