The Anthropogenic Salt Cycle

So, we have people out there driving around year round on bald summer tires, and to make sure they don't kill themselves or cause major issues, turning the roads "black and wet" with loads of salt becomes the solution.

It's totally unsurprising that the salt is harmful to the environment. I imagine that saving people the expense of winter tires in this way may actually be a false economy, given that the salt rapidly accelerates the destruction of cars themselves and the concrete infrastructure it's applied to.

Politicians largely don't want to touch this issue, I think, because they're often the target of blame when the roads are insufficiently cleared and people have trouble getting around.

As an example: several years ago in NYC, a sudden snowstorm caused devastating gridlock around the city and the mayor was dragged over the coals. In response, for the rest of that winter, whenever there was even a hint of a chance of snow, the city would preemptively put down an extraordinary amount of salt. At one point that winter, I stepped out of my office and the street was completely covered thick layer of salt, which was being pulverized by traffic into a dense cloud that looked like heavy fog. Just walking around the air tasted strongly salty. It never snowed, or even rained, so all of that salt just sat there for days.

The density of saline water relative to fresh water makes this a somewhat interesting phenomenon (though of course not for the people who depend on fresh water in their aquifer).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_intrusion

You move to the Dacks because you are OK with a few feet of snow, and a few days of travel restrictions. Destroying that on the alter of the automobile is such a stupidly American thing to do.

I don't think owning a car should be a luxury item, but there's some midpoint here that we as a society aren't grasping where we not only expect, but nearly enforce, that people too poor to change their oil or have proper tires should still own a car. In societies with good public transport, /everyone/ uses it, not just those of lower economic circumstances, and cars become a less necessary piece of infrastructure that can be treated more as a middle class convenience than a bare necessity, which is basically what it should be.

It regularly blows my mind seeing shit heaps that are clearly unsafe rolling down the highway with paper tags that expired 2 years ago on them, that have clearly never been properly registered or inspected. That should be made untenable in our society, but we cannot do that without also providing a pathway for people to get from where they live to where they work and to community resources. We've painted ourselves into a corner by building car-centric cities, not investing in public transport, and creating a social condition where a small but prevalent portion of society can't maintain what little possession they manage to own.

Salting the roads is only a benefit to folks who don't have a properly maintained vehicle suitable for the environment they are living in. And it's a detriment to everyone else. Salt absolutely destroys cars, it destroys the roads, and it destroys the ecosystem as well.