Days After Storm, Why Are Metro Road Conditions Still Poor?

Two days after most of the Twin Cities area, including Golden Valley, received more than 10 inches of snow, traveling the roadways remained complicated in spots.

On Dec. 11, a rollover on westbound 394 tied up traffic near Golden Valley. On Dec. 12, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation's Twitter feed, a spin-out a westbound 394 on-ramp closed the road during rush hour.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation addressed the road conditions in a Dec. 11, 2012 statement on the Minnesota Department of Transportation Facebook page: 

MnDOT continues addressing the compacted snow and icy conditions on highways and interstates—particularly in southwestern/west central Minnesota and the Twin Cities Metro area. The cold temperatures are complicating our work, because salt becomes much less effective at 10 degrees or lower. Temps will warm over the next couple days, which will make the salt compounds we’ve been putting on the roads MUCH more effective.

County roads and city streets are having the same issue, and those public works departments are working just as hard as MnDOT to get your commutes back to good winter driving condition as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, plow drivers are out there doing everything they can to get rid of that compacted snow before your afternoon commute.

We all will be happy to see the sun (and higher temperatures) tomorrow.

"Due to the conditions in which the snow fell, under heavy traffic and then plummeting temperatures, we have ice conditions whereby the actions of deicing agents had little effect during Monday," Director of Public Works Ken Ashfeld wrote in an email to Patch Tuesday. "All roads, but mostly highly traveled roads such as State highway and County roads, are still in a relatively ice covered condition. I would expect much improvement throughout Tuesday and particularly Wednesday as temperatures rebound which allows salt to work much better."