Twice now I've been making my daily commute to work northbound on the lakefront path. In both instances, overnight icing had been predicted and in both instances I was on the trail at 7:00 AM and found it to be covered in ice. The first day, probably a month ago I actually passed a southbound park district pickup salting the path. On that day I was able to ride a mostly ice-free path because the farther I got from where I passed that truck, the more time the salt had had to work on the ice.

Now the other day, what Wednesday? Thursday? there was major glare ice all over the path and no sign of salting occurring anywhere. I wiped out riding on the walkway area between the Shedd and the back of the Field. The whole ramp going down westwards away from the Shedd was completely, dangerously iced over. I ran into another guy I always see every morning, named Pete. Pete told me that the ramp going up to the bridge to Navy Pier was completely dangerously iced up and that he'd wiped out there. I told him about the museum campus ice issue and we parted ways.

Coming home that day it was obvious from the piles of salt everywhere that someone had come out and salted the path, but it had to have been well after about 8:00 AM. So now, I'm thinking what the hell? It should be obvious to the city that the path is heavily used by cyclists as runners and people just out walking, even on the coldest and nastiest days. Why isn't someone out there salting the damn path starting at 5:00 AM or something?

It's not like someone can't go out and check that the path is iced over. They run snow plows and salt trucks on the streets 24/7 when the weather is nasty. Is the path always dicey and unpredictable in the winter, because a co-worker has been biking to work for years and says he thinks it's often cleaner and better plowed than the city streets. However, he has a commute about half the distance or less than mine, so it's possible that when he finally heads out to work the salting has already occurred whereas I'm leaving too early to see the benefits?

Still, it doesn't make sense that the city is not going out and salting earlier in the morning rather than seemingly waiting until much later in the morning to start taking care of the path. I'm seriously thinking about buying studded tires, but I don't want to spend $100+ on tires that will only be of use for a few days throughout the winter, not to mention putting them on and dealing with the higher rolling resistance and potentially damaging the tires by riding all the time on mostly dry pavement.