A warm start to the winter season has left the Great Lakes virtually ice-free and with their lowest ice cover to kick off a new year in at least 50 years.
On New Year’s Day, only 0.35% of the Great Lakes were covered in ice, the lowest on record for the date, and well below the historical average of nearly 10% for this point in winter, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
This year’s missing ice in the Great Lakes adds to a growing trend of winter ailments plaguing the US, from dwindling snowpacks in the West to an ongoing snow drought in the Northeast, all becoming more common due to warming temperatures from the climate crisis.
It’s not even remotely useless where I live. The bus comes every 10 or so minutes during the day, and I just looked at the train schedule and there averages a train about every 40 minutes throughout the day (obviously more clustered around rush hours).
You can always find a reason it’s not convenient enough to use. I know, I’ve done it myself. It doesn’t quite get close to where we’re going, so we would have to walk a bunch or transfer on the other end. It’s faster to drive. It’s cheaper to drive (when there are 4 of us) if I think I can find parking. It’s cold. It’s too hot.
The reality is that it’s almost always going to be more convenient to drive, unless something drastically changes. It’s blame shifting, just like corporations are trying to do.