3 ms·

The Michigan city that doesn't need to plow its roads

20 points by rmason 3y ago

rmason 3y ago
The headline isn't exactly true. The city of Holland is on Lake Michigan and gets a unique Michigan phenomena called lake effect snows. Lake effect is snow falling on the lee side of a lake, generated by cold dry air passing over warmer water. Probably a half dozen times a year when the weather is right they will get three or four inches an hour and overwhelm the heating system. Still it works the majority of the time and is pretty unique.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  Not entirely unique, lake effect snow hits many parts of the Great Lakes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Yup. Grew up in MN. If there was a huge storm it was almost always due to that, or so the news said.
- dave78 3y ago
  The article is also misleading (IMO) as to the scope of the project. It amounts to about 5 blocks of road in the downtown area. The article says "5 miles" but that must be counting the length of all the sidewalks. It's certainly not 5 miles of streets. It's a very nice feature if you're visiting the downtown area, but it's mostly a novelty for residents. Other than a lucky few who actually live downtown, everyone still has to clear their streets/driveways there just like anywhere else. If anything, it probably benefits the tourists and tourism most.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    They do include an interactive map in the article that is much more… whelming. Of interest though, looking at the interactive map we see some of the lucky neighborhoods you mentioned standing seemingly separate from the rest of the network that have the system installed. I wonder why and how that came to be.
    - camkego 3y ago
      I was curious about this also. One isolated area with the heating is the Holland Energy Park utility company. I guess running the system has it's benefits.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  They do mention the lake effect in the first sentence though
TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
Could you make the system also function as district heating and waste heat recycling? That might make the cost seem more justifiable.
brailsafe 3y ago
Supposing it works sufficiently, it's a great example of innovative urban systems that many cities who could desperately benefit from them don't try and pursue. I visited my hometown in Central Canada after winter this year, hoping that it would be the right time, but nope, I forgot about sand and car debris. Even walking one block in that damned city is like being whipped in the face with a fistful of gravel. Everyone drives, and so the roads need to be cleared, and sanded, and nobody in the cars experiences what it's like to be walking next to the road and have all that shit flying through the air. Tangentially, it's just one of those things that gets me down about stagnant cities. There's no money because it all goes to roads and maintaining other expensive infrastructure, and if there was money, it'd go to some asinine ribbon-cutting one-off that falls apart shortly after. There's no incremental improvement of full systems that help make life more compelling; the people seem to get used to it, while the ones who can afford it isolate themselves as much as possible and vote to keep it that way.
m463 3y ago
I wonder if this kind of thing could be combined with "seasonal data centers" that need cooling. You could shift your server load to wherever snow needs to be melted.
eternityforest 3y ago
"Now, can we get them to figure out how to make it so I don’t have to rake anymore?" I thought the consensus was that we should just stop raking and blowing.

20 points by rmason 3y ago

The headline isn't exactly true. The city of Holland is on Lake Michigan and gets a unique Michigan phenomena called lake effect snows. Lake effect is snow falling on the lee side of a lake, generated by cold dry air passing over warmer water. Probably a half dozen times a year when the weather is right they will get three or four inches an hour and overwhelm the heating system. Still it works the majority of the time and is pretty unique.

pimlottc 3y ago
Not entirely unique, lake effect snow hits many parts of the Great Lakes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Yup. Grew up in MN. If there was a huge storm it was almost always due to that, or so the news said.
dave78 3y ago
The article is also misleading (IMO) as to the scope of the project. It amounts to about 5 blocks of road in the downtown area. The article says "5 miles" but that must be counting the length of all the sidewalks. It's certainly not 5 miles of streets. It's a very nice feature if you're visiting the downtown area, but it's mostly a novelty for residents. Other than a lucky few who actually live downtown, everyone still has to clear their streets/driveways there just like anywhere else. If anything, it probably benefits the tourists and tourism most.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  They do include an interactive map in the article that is much more… whelming. Of interest though, looking at the interactive map we see some of the lucky neighborhoods you mentioned standing seemingly separate from the rest of the network that have the system installed. I wonder why and how that came to be.
  - camkego 3y ago
    I was curious about this also. One isolated area with the heating is the Holland Energy Park utility company. I guess running the system has it's benefits.
brailsafe 3y ago
They do mention the lake effect in the first sentence though

TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago

Could you make the system also function as district heating and waste heat recycling? That might make the cost seem more justifiable.

brailsafe 3y ago

Supposing it works sufficiently, it's a great example of innovative urban systems that many cities who could desperately benefit from them don't try and pursue. I visited my hometown in Central Canada after winter this year, hoping that it would be the right time, but nope, I forgot about sand and car debris. Even walking one block in that damned city is like being whipped in the face with a fistful of gravel. Everyone drives, and so the roads need to be cleared, and sanded, and nobody in the cars experiences what it's like to be walking next to the road and have all that shit flying through the air. Tangentially, it's just one of those things that gets me down about stagnant cities. There's no money because it all goes to roads and maintaining other expensive infrastructure, and if there was money, it'd go to some asinine ribbon-cutting one-off that falls apart shortly after. There's no incremental improvement of full systems that help make life more compelling; the people seem to get used to it, while the ones who can afford it isolate themselves as much as possible and vote to keep it that way.

m463 3y ago

I wonder if this kind of thing could be combined with "seasonal data centers" that need cooling. You could shift your server load to wherever snow needs to be melted.

eternityforest 3y ago

"Now, can we get them to figure out how to make it so I don’t have to rake anymore?" I thought the consensus was that we should just stop raking and blowing.