Chicago's Short-Sighted Snow Removal Policy Comes At Steep Cost

It's been snowing all week with nary a snow plow in sight. Chicago has a new snow removal policy and it's illogical and ill-conceived at best. A knee-jerk political reaction to a budgetary crisis that promises to do more harm than good.

It used to be that Chicago was well-prepared for winter storms and its citizenry could depend on a swift reaction from Streets and Sanitation to clear the highways and roads and generally to keep traffic moving apace. Things are different now that Chicago and virtually every other governmental entity in the country are experiencing unexpected budgetary shortfalls. No one could have expected this result only a few months ago. But, then came the financial crisis and the TARP and the loss of jobs and anticipated tax receipts.

How has Chicago responded to this crisis? By cutting back on virtually all non-emergency governmental services, including snow removal. The justification for which is that, like many other governmental services, it can still be adequate with less capacity and frequency. (Remember, we are talking about winter in Chicago, not Las Vegas.) While it is true that a reduction in expenditures for snow removal will save costs for that budgetary line item, it will not result in overall economic savings for the City. Nor will it buttress the budget. Rather, it will come at a steep and incalculable price and a net economic loss for the City.

Here we are the weekend before Christmas, typically the busiest shopping weekend of the year and we are beset not only by freezing temperatures and incessant snowfall, but also by transportation gridlock. What should be a last minute surge of holiday shoppers with money to spend is turning out to be one big traffic headache, that is if one can even navigate the roads at all.

And here is the problem inherent in the type of short-term thinking leading to the ill-conceived government policy of which I speak and for which government is so notable: Oftentimes it actually achieves the exact opposite result intended on a macro-economic basis. As noted, the City will save some snow removal dollars but to what end? To leave the streets unpassable and cars immobilized from heaps of snow. To discourage City residents and suburbanites from journeying to Michigan Avenue and Downtown and elsewhere in the City for a final holiday shopping spree. To find stores and other retail outlets of every kind with substantially fewer customers than projected in the final days before Christmas. Did the policymakers even consider these consequences when they effectively allowed Chicago to be snowed-in?

The economics of Chicago's snow removal policy will become abundantly clear in short order. Retail revenues of all forms will be substantially lower and, consequently, so will sales and other tax receipts. Emptier stores, restaurants, movie theatres and service stations necessarily leads to this inevitability. Hence, from a macro-economic point of view, without even considering the increased safety risk to people and property from a laissez-faire snow removal policy, Chicago gambled on a mild winter and so far has lost.

In the end, the taxpayer will be on the hook. More taxes and fees will be demanded because the budget shortfall will be worse than forecast as a direct result of the unsound snow removal policy. A policy that was economically flawed at the outset. A policy that only considered the short-term political benefit of saving relatively meager budgetary dollars as compared to the staggering loss of tax receipts, not to mention increased business hardships and loss of jobs -- the ultimate sources of Chicago's tax base.