Seattle's no-salt policy for snowy roads has even plows spinning wheels

DIRE weather cries out for a dramatic response. If you've been attempting to drive anything other than an all-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive vehicle, you know Seattle has taken a laid-back approach to clearing streets.

Days of freezing cold and heavy snow produced a list of major streets and arterials that may or may not have been plowed, while the city purposely avoided a useful ingredient, salt. In Seattle, a plowed street means snow-packed, often sand sprinkled atop snow and ice.

The Seattle Department of Transportation eschews salt because it is not good for Puget Sound. Most snow days, most years, that makes sense — snow falls, lasts a day or two, and melts. The inconvenience to drivers, retailers and others is minimal. But Earth to city leaders: This is not a normal year. The city should have made an exception to its policy. Salt is an effective ice-buster.

For days, downtown streets have been filled with hard-packed and chunky snow. The net effect is a surface reminiscent of the wagon days. Giddy up. At the height of the Christmas shopping season, parts of Fourth Avenue downtown were a mess. Same goes for Fifth Avenue and many major streets heading into and out of the retail core.

The state Department of Transportation uses salt mixed with other de-icing ingredients.

City policy should have been revised as the nasty weather persisted. Seattle has 27 snow plows but the no-salt diet makes it seem like they are literally and figuratively spinning their wheels.