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During the Mel-Storm, I was working as a production assistant, driving a van all over the city. For me, those days were brutal. The problem wasn't due to difficulty "trudging and driving through deep snow" but instead: parking, plowed snowbanks, and blocked streetcars.
In Toronto, every foot, of every curb, on every street, has a car parked in front of it. The curb lanes are only free for driving during the morning and evening rush hours. The centre lane is shared by cars and the Street cars.
So when the plows came, and completely filled in the curb lanes, there was nowhere to park. Most people wedged their cars into the snowbanks as best they could, but still blocked a bit of the centre lane. This blocked the streetcars and brought traffic to a halt. In otherwords: complete gridlock on the major arteries.
Drivers were then forced onto the secondary streets, which were narrower to begin with. Often, one wide lane was shared by both directions. With tempers short, the rules and conventions of the road went out the window, and you were on your own. The net result? More gridlock.
I remember being just about in tears, at an intersection where a steady stream of traffic ignored the 3 way stop, leaving me unable to get through for about 15 minutes. Believe me, a full 15 min stuck at an intersection is a lot longer than you might think.
So in some ways, the city ceased to function, and we needed help. Not because we were "wimpy", but because our urban planning failed miserably.
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Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life
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