I’ve been meaning to post this since the “Blizzard.” Since then, of course, we’ve had a little more of the white stuff.
It started after the first storm, when Bob on the corner borrowed Bob & Liz’s snow blower (we have 4 corners, 3 Bobs), and did 4 blocks of sidewalk, even though the City normally clears our walks (more on that below*).
Then during the “Blizzard” I took this shot on Canterbury Road (near the Eliot T stop–officially Newton Highlands), where neighbors had clearly banded together to clear the sidewalks–both sides of the street and even to the aqueduct path many of us take to the T.
Last week, despite no-show from the city plows, neighbors took on a good chunk of Chestnut (and other streets) sidewalks, even through the windrows left by the street plows, so kids and commuters weren’t forced into traffic.
Today, Bob-of-the-snowblower’s wife, Liz, is taking the snowblower down Chestnut again.
Tell us if your favorite sidewalks got the Neighborly Newton treatment!
About the City sidewalk clearance–a combination of horrific weather and equipment failure (some of this stuff dates from before Prop. 2 1/2 passed) have made keeping the school routes clear a nightmare. They did Beacon for the first time since the “Blizzard” on Saturday. Most of Chestnut was done last night. Of course, another foot has fallen since.
So neighbors–I know you were counting on not having to do your walks, but if you are on a snow route, please clear your walk for this storm!
And Newton–it’s time we invested in some decent sidewalk clearing equipment, so our DPW workers (thank you guys & gals!) can do the job.
For those not on school routes–here’s an idea from Ann Arbor.
Sadly I’m in the opposite situation – the guys I pay for snow clearing make a path on the sidewalk, then the neighbor on one side (or hireling) fills it in. At this point, I’m loath to keep asking my guys to keep playing Sisyphus.
I’m with you, Andrea. See my ‘Letter to the Editor’ about digging out fire hydrants that will hopefully be published in this coming Tab… (emailed in yesterday….) Maybe people who live along city-cleared routes can in particular pitch in…
A good neighbor tale. My son was moving my car so the person who plows my driveway had plenty of room for a third pass and he got stuck pulling out into the street because he didn’t know the city plow had just dumped a pile at the end of the driveway. He started to dig it out and 5 people came to help. Two got out of their cars and the rest were neighbors.
(Thanks!!!)
A city plow driver yelled obscenities at everyone for blocking the street. Nice. Another friend was clearing his driveway at the end and the city plow driver yelled obscenities at him for standing there. I know they are extremely tired, but that’s uncalled for.
I cleaned the sidewalk around my house about 3 feet wide down to bare sidewalk making a nice canyon with vertical walls about 3 feet deep. Then the city ran their 4 foot wide plow down the sidewalk which just caved everything in and left a hard-packed pile over a foot deep. Sigh,
This is my neighborhood and I LOVE my neighbors! We don’t have a garage or a snowblower. My next door neighbors on either side of me snow blow us out, while we assist with shoveling. I then go inside and bake them bread or cookies or brownies.
This neighborhood is amazing – (at least 99% of them are). Not just around snow, but other things. So glad that we moved to this neighborhood.
However the city plow still dumps snow on my corner, and the blowers just can’t cut through. And my kids use the sidewalks to get to the bus stop.
There has to be a happy medium between city plows and residents, but I am really glad I live here.
@Andreae – We have a Bob next door and he too has a snowblower and he too digs us and other neighbors out. Ya gotta love our Bobs.
That was my mistake – I moved onto a Bob-less street.
@mgwa – the realtors should add that to their property summaries. Nearest elementry school, tax pet $1000, average price of surrounding properties, and number of Bob’s within a 1/4 mile.
I don’t know. I can speak pretty highly of Bills, Toms, Karens, and Emilys (or is “Emilies” the plural of Emily?)
Oh, and Jonathans! We are in possession of an excellent Jonathan here.
And many thanks to Rodney and Kevin on my street. Especially Rodney who has cleared my drive several times in the past two weeks.
Marti, my husband had a similar experience with a city plow. He had to pull our daughter’s car out of the driveway while our plow guys were clearing the driveway. He drove around the block a couple of times and while doing so was forced on to a snow bank by a city plow. The driver clearly saw what had happened and kept going. It took 6 people, all private citizens, to help my husband off of the snowbank. Between that and the frankly crappy job they have done on my street, I am not a fan.
We have great neighbors here too – the ones with snowblowers help the ones without, and everyone pitches in with shovels. But this morning when I went out to clear the end of my driveway again, two twenty-something renters across the street were doing the same, except one was throwing the snow into the area around the fire hydrant in front of THEIR house that my son had cleared the night before. When I told him to stop, I got the whiny “where do you want me to put it?” While I knew exactly where I wanted him to put it, I let him figure it out.
Our short street of eight homes has a certain Brian who has been clearing the whole length of sidewalks and ends of driveways every storm without fail.
Last week he was at the Super Bowl and the next day Linus hit our area. I looked out the window Monday morning and saw what I thought was Brian pushing his snow blower as usual. I couldn’t believe he had managed to get back from AZ and was already out there one day after celebrating the Pats’ victory.
Turned out it was his dad! He’s evidently from a line of neighborly snow angels.
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/kids-jp-and-west-roxbury-who-dig-out-hydrants-can
This looks like a great idea – Boston City Councilor Matt O’Malley says he’s giving out $5 JP Licks gift certificates to kids in his district who shovel out hydrants. E-mail him before and after pictures (or tweet the photos to him or post to his Facebook page).
mgwa,
Also a nice idea – esp when schools are closed for snow days!!! If we get an adopt-a-hydrant program going (if my Letter to the Editor gets published and anybody reads it) – they can do the hydrants that are not adopted!!
Now exactly which aldermanorwoman is going to shell out the $FiveBucks??
We have a Bob on our street who sets a great example for the rest of his (usually) able bodied neighbors. He and his wife are the first ones shoveling out their walks every storm and they set the standard for what the walkways should look like, and we all rise to the occasion. The new snow blower arrives this weekend, and you’d think we’d won the lottery when we finally found one for sale. Phew!
This last storm reminded the Metro-Boston area that Mother Nature rules and we’re (literally) plowing through. As one who experienced the Blizzard of ’78, our present situation is definitely comparable. While 95/’96 may still hold the record for total inches of snow, this is the real deal as far as impact on the daily lives of residents in the Northeast. We’re rising to the occasion, as we did in ’78. Good for us.
Jane,
If the last snow reminded (those) people (who forgot) that Mother Nature rules, what’s the next one (they say this Thursday) going to remind people of?
Jane H.- We’ve been lucky not to lose power so the back to back hurricanes, Carol and Edna, in the 50’s still tops this by quite a bit. As for the cabin fever factor, this month may be the gold standard. 😉
I’m with you on the cabin fever but if I had been home with kids during the snow days, like my daughter trying to work from home with 3 boys not in school, I might have run away by now. And it’s not Thursday, but it is snowing!!!
Andreae, the Board of Aldermen will hold a special meeting tonight to take up the city’s emergency request for additional sidewalk clearing equipment. The backup documentation the aldermen just received indicates that the city is seeking $325,000 to buy two new Bombardiers to replace outdated and obsolete equipment. The Commissioner of DPW, Dave Turocy, informed me last week that the heavy storms of the past few weeks and the age and condition of the city’s existing sidewalk plows resulted in multiple equipment breakdowns which caused the city to fall behind on snow removal.
I hope with the city’s admission of the dismal condition of the sidewalks that are it’s responsibility, there will be a rethinking of fines for residents’ unable to keep theirs cleared. I found the Ann Arbor resident volunteer coordinator quoted in Andreae’s link to be an excellent summary of the sidewalk snow clearing problem.
“Pedestrians deserve a respectful transportation experience, and the sidewalk is fundamentally a transportation corridor,” says SnowBuddy’s lead organizer, Paul Tinkerhess, a 30-year resident of Ann Arbor. “When you look at it that way, it’s absurd to think that many cities assign winter maintenance of sidewalks to homeowners.”
“I came gradually to understand that a system that assigns sidewalk maintenance to every homeowner will never function well for the pedestrian,” he says. “Eight out of 10 walkways might be cleared, but there is always going to be someone who is sick or out of town or just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”
The Bob on our street is named Deb and yesterday when I home from work she was outside shoveling our actual street.. One shovelful at a time.
What a great story, Andreae! It inspired me to a modest degree of Bobness (Bobitude?) this evening. Because of a cancelled meeting, I found myself with 2 free hours, and rather than dawdle the time away on facebook, I shoveled the sidewalks of a few neighbors who for whatever reason had slacked off. And cut a pass through a six-foot plow mound. I had been grumbling to myself about their uncleared sidewalks and the plow mound for two days, and strangely enough, that strategy had not magically solved the problem.
The massive plow mound on Hammond Street at Chestnut Hill Road, on the other hand… To say it’s blocking a crosswalk is an understatement. It has obliterated the crosswalk with a pile big enough that we’ll be celebrating its birthday next year. A lot of people make the trek from BC to the Chestnut Hill T stop, and every one of them is on the street at an awkward, narrow spot because of that mound. It’s especially irksome because there are plenty of places to put a snow pile at that intersection that block nothing. I reported it to 311. We’ll see if they hold to their promise to reduce the size of the mound within 7 days.
Was just up Nordic skiing by New Hampshire today… Those towns have some mean sidewalk clearing equipment. Sidewalks look like the parting of the Red Sea.
Maybe those who are so inclined can also help dig out the fire hydrants!! I’ve dug out out block’s three times now… Sure cures cabin fever.
Speaking of which… I think the city should have some contests this Sunday… Who can shovel the most snow or the who can make the highest mound… Have some fun with this snow.
The BOA approved the purchase of two new Bombardiers–which Ald. Gentile referred to as the “Cadillac” of sidewalk plows–which will arrive today. Dave Turocy noted that city staff and contractors have been working around the clock, but that four of the city’s 20+ year old sidewalk plows were out of commission because of age and condition (needed new clutch, new motor, etc.). All but one of the remaining vehicles were just not up to the job of knocking down and through the mounds of snow piled on sidewalks. He said that, whereas in an ordinary storm the city gets through 80% of the 87 miles of sidewalk for which it is responsible within a few days after a major storm, with the unprecedented snowfall this winter the city has only gotten through about 40%. School routes, T stops and busy sidewalks are the priorities. The new plows, along with rented and repaired plows the city owns should be more prepared for the next storm (for which apparently we do not have long to wait).
Ted, considering what we have been experiencing, I can tolerate the 40% completion rate of snow removal by the city for this historic event. What concerns me is that Dave Turocy notes “in an ordinary storm the city gets through 80% of the 87 miles of sidewalk for which it is responsible within a few days after a major storm”. And yet, property owners need to do 100% of snow removal within 30 hours of the storm’s end. There appears to be different standards being applied.
And I wonder why property owners that have not paved normal public walking paths abutting their property are exempt from the snow ordinance. People still need to walk on the unpaved walkways even with the snow in place. That snow needs to be cleared just like the snow on the paved walkways.
Patrick, among the questions asked by the aldermen at last night’s meeting was (I am paraphrasing here) how many vehicles would DPW need to do 100% of the job as near as 100% of the time as possible. The problem as it was explained to us was that the current equipment was just not up to the job of dealing with a major snowstorm, much less Snowmageddon. These two additional vehicles, plus the vehicles the city has had to rent, should help but there may be more that must be added to Newton’s capital improvement plan. While it may not snow this much, it does snow every year and we have to expect that with climate change we are going to see more winters like this in the future. It certainly does not make sense to have to rent equipment all the time and, as Ald. Gentile quipped, given the timing Newton did not get the best price on these vehicles. But this was a start and I hope and expect that DPW will come back and ask for as much equipment as it needs to make sure that school children, commuters and pedestrians with mobility impairments will be able to get around safely on city-owned sidewalks and school routes.
If you want to see the new vehicles, check out my Tweet.
First of all, this is not about Bobs. Andrea pointed out that her neighbors were Bob and LIZ. So let’s hear it for the women, too.
Secondly, Ted…
I may be misinterpreting, but I think that what Patrick is saying is that residents, homeowners, have also been working morning, noon and night, day after day to clear their own sidewalks and, while you seem to be apologetic toward the city, you don’t have anywhere near the same praise for us. I don’t want to get into what the city did wrong in the past, outdated equipment, or that it waited for a newr disaster to get adequate equipment – but rather that it’s making the right moves now. The equipment pictured in the Tweet is the equipment that I saw all day yesterday on my drive upstate. And Andrea had the right idea – to appeal to homeowners and residents who live along sidewalks marked by the city to be plowed by the city – to be neighborly and pitch in.
I certainly hope that the idea of the colored stickers was not to “shame” residents who don’t shovel, and that that’s your personal interpretation. I would hate to think that this is what our aldermenandwomen intended. I personally think that homeowners – men, women, husbands, wives, kids, even dogs – deserve a lot of praise for how we’ve been handling the snow. We’ve been digging out our own driveways and sidewalks, and our neighbors’ driveways and sidewalks. We too have had equipment that has sometimes been inadequate for this type of snow – yet we’ve been getting out and shoveling manually.
We’ve also been digging out our fire hydrants, and we’ve been digging them out AGAIN after the city plows come by and create another 3′ wall of compressed snow.
Perhaps you can sing our praises.
Ted, thank you for your reply; however it does not answer my two concerns. I started my last comment indicating that we should not use the current events as the performance measurement stick for standard operations. The city crew under Dave Turocy’s management is doing as well as can be reasonably expected with this extreme situation.
My first issue is with the comment about ordinary storms. It appears the BOA does not have a concern that the city can only perform 80% of the snow removal work within a few days, yet the BOA expects residential property owners to do 100% of their work within 1.25 days (and businesses need to be even faster). Those are the different standards to which I was referring. And that does not even address the expected quality of the snow removal activities outlined in the city ordinance versus the results of the city plowing of our sidewalks.
My second issue questions why unpaved sidewalks should be exempt from the snow removal ordinance, if there is to be an ordinance. Those unpaved sidewalks are part of the city’s sidewalk network, and as such should be included in any mandated snow removal.
As I have said before, I believe property owners should be responsible for snow removal given their ability either physically and/or financially. However I do not think the city should hold the property owners to a higher standard than it holds itself, and then subject them to fines and hanging tags if they fail to satisfy these higher standards..
I will give you credit for being the only public official willing to address these comments. Thank you.
Patrick, maybe I was not clear. The aldermen are committed to making sure that DPW has the equipment it needs to do the job right. Dave Turocy as the department head tells the Mayor’s office what he needs, but the Mayor decides what goes into the CIP (Capital Improvement Plan). It is also up to the Mayor to ask the Board of Aldermen to appropriate funds from free cash or bonds to pay for capital expenditures.
Dave was reporting that DPW has old machines that are not in good condition, which was why the city has not always been able to handle major storms as well as it might. When half your fleet of sidewalk snow plows is broken down and in need of repair or replacement, you obviously cannot get the job done right and you cannot simply ignore it. I thought he was being forthright and honest about the reasons that the city was asking for funds on an emergency basis.
The city has a lot of priorities of which snow removal is certainly one. Following the vote on the sidewalk snow plows last night, the aldermen were given a two hour presentation and Q&A about $42 million in stormwater management expenditures that will be required over the next 22 years, which are in many ways just as important to residents, particularly in areas that flood regularly.
Ted, I guess we are coming at this issue from different perspectives. I agreed with your earlier comment that the city deserves an orange door hanger on the front door of city hall. Until that happens and/or until the city is able to fulfill its snow removal responsibilities in a timely fashion, the city should not issue any orange door hangers and/or collect fines from property owners, either residential or business.
In hindsight, maybe someone should have better allocated the money distribution request in the last override. JMO.
Patrick – A twenty/twenty hindsight kind of situation. We’ve not experienced an extended period of time when snow has affected daily life since 95-96, so the issue kind of dropped off the radar screen. Newton has so many infrastructure issues to deal with due to decades of neglect that we’re taken by surprise when we find yet another area that needs immediate attention. Once the winter is over, the storm water situation absolutely needs to be addressed.
I wouldn’t mind seeing the city have an override to deal with each of these capital expenditures – snow removal, storm water, etc. – to put 21st century infrastructure in place in the city. I worry about Newton returning to the model of robbing Peter to pay Paul as a short term solution to an emergency.
As an aside, I’m a real fan of Dave Turocy, but neither he nor the Aldermen requested the funds for new snow equipment.
Jane, please stick to what you know. When it comes to asking for money, the Mayor–not the aldermen or department heads–must request funding. Or, as former Finance Chairman Paul Colletti always used to say, “the Mayor proposes, the Board disposes.” Dave Turocy has been pretty forthright about the need for new and better equipment for a long time. He came into Public Facilities again last week to say the city needed new sidewalk snow plows but for some reason the Mayor did not ask for the money until this week. Better late than never, I suppose, but as I said in a previous thread, city employees need the proper equipment to do their jobs. It is too bad it takes a series of severe storms like we have had this winter to finally achieve some progress on that front.
Patrick, I do hear what you are saying. The city does not impose fines only stern notes on door hangers. I agree that it isn’t fair to impose fines if the city cannot fulfill its own obligations to clear sidewalks. “Uncle.” Are we good?
Jane H, I am very sympathetic to homeowners, particularly those I have heard from the past two weeks who have had to shovel or pay to remove snow on the sidewalks in front of their homes that was dumped by private or city plows. It isn’t fair. But this has been an unusually bad winter. I have made a point of telling residents to log every complaint on 311 or I do it myself, and the automated message which comes back is that the dumped snow will be removed in 3 to 7 days. I heard from Jim Morrison that the TAB will also be reporting on sidewalk shoveling and how the aldermen are doing with their own sidewalks. So there will be plenty of humble pie to go around.
Under state law, towns can assess a betterment charge for plowing sidewalks, but there is no similar provision for cities. That would probably be the fairest and best way to ensure that all of the city sidewalks are plowed and that residents pay in proportion to their frontage. And it would not require a tax override. Until then, we have a sidewalk snow ordinance that lacks teeth and a DPW that lacks sufficient equipment to do the job, even with the addition of two new “Cadillacs” of sidewalk snow plows.
Stay safe and stay indoors this weekend. It’s gonna be a real Shelby Scottah!
Ted- That is exactly what I meant! I am perfectly aware that it was the Mayor who requested the funds. The quote was “I’m a real fan of Dave Turocy, but neither he nor the Aldermen requested the funds for new snow equipment.”
If I may be explicit: if the funding for new snow removal equipment (which the city desperately needs) came from the Stabilization Fund which will receive additional funding annually according to Maureen Lemieux, then I think it’s a great idea. As yet, I haven’t heard how we’re paying for this.
I do know that for 20 years, funding for emergencies and a new high school came from the maintenance budgets for public buildings, and I know all too well how this affected the learning and teaching environment in the school system. I’ve also heard from numerous firefighters that their infrastructure and equipment was seriously dated as a result. If the funding came from another budget item, then it is incumbent on the city to let the residents know that. If it came from funds set aside to address emergency situations, then I’m 100% for it.
@Ted
but not tonight .
Jane, the plain fact is that this administration took on the responsibility for many more miles of sidewalk than it had the capacity to plow, and only now has it come to light because of a really bad winter. So now we are buying new plows at a premium price. That is not sound capital management planning.
Hey, Ted,
Do you want to think again about the Alderman’s position (yours included) to shame residents who do not plow within 30 hours of the end of the storm? Residents also have planning issues. Unless you can see the future perfectly. I don’t mind the idea of asking us residents to do our sidewalks. That’s legitimate with me. But the idea of shaming those who don’t?
Many residents also go above and beyond what’s required of them.
I’m glad that, at least, the current administration saw sidewalk plowing as a need, and was concerned enough about pedestrian safety to try to install sidewalks and shovel them in the snow. Others have not been. In an administration that’s trying to catch up in all sorts of matters that were overlooked for years and years, at least its trying to catch up to – and achieve – its goal. I’ll support that any snowy day.
The need for better equipment was hardly a secret. The DPW has been trying to do the best it could with inadequate rented equipment, but sidewalk clearing performance after improving (I think) the first few years of the Setti administration, has been in steady decline last two years or so. So why did the administration hold out so long? Ted, it may not be the Aldermen’s responsibility to make capital requests, but surely you’ve been hearing complaints from constituents long before the storm? I know my Alderman has…
Jane H, since the Puritans arrived in Boston aboard the Arbella in 1630, New England has had a long and colorful history of shaming, from the Scarlet letter to the stockades to, well, door hangers reprimanding sidewalk snow removal ordinance scofflaws. A door hanger is a far cry from the pillory.
The pilot sidewalk snow removal ordinance includes exceptions and assistance for true hardship cases. But if an absentee landlord pays someone to plow the driveway and the walk but not the sidewalk, then I am a lot less sympathetic. The same is true of homeowners who are physically or financially able but unwilling to clear their sidewalks. I am TOTALLY sympathetic to the homeowner who lives on a corner lot who has the burden of dealing with a curb cut that a private or city has dumped six feet of snow on. If you can plan to have someone shovel or plow your driveway while you are away, then you can plan to have them do your sidewalk too.
The fact that the city has been less than perfect does not excuse noncompliance. Regardless whether it is the city’s or the citizens’ obligation, however, clearing your sidewalk is a matter of public safety not just public convenience.
Peace out.
The city needs to appoint a single person to make sure that pedestrians get equal treatment with cars. This person needs to control enough resources to get the job done. Until this is done, cars will rule and walkers will continue to be afterthoughts.
Ted, we are good. Thank you for your continued participation and for being the de facto BOA representation on this website. I do not always agree with you; however I do respect that you are willing to state a position and defend it with facts and data rather than just emotions. Sometimes, I learn something new reading your comments, and that makes V14 a worthwhile website for me.
Thanks, Patrick. Just between you and me, I actually enjoy the give and take on the blogs. Talking to people who don’t agree with me all the time keeps me a little sharper than just talking to the echo chamber.
Ted,
This I never knew – I thought that “Arbella” was just the name of an insurance company!! Thanks. I’d just like to hear something positive from you about all the shoveling that we are doing, not just what some aren’t doing. If you want to help create a sense of community, there are many people in this town who deserve a lot of recognition right about now.You certainly are giving the Aldermenandwomen a lot of credit. How about us?? Maybe you’ll help support my idea regarding shoveling out the fire hydrants, particularly in light of the fire this morning.
Mark,
There is a Pedestrian Advisory Group which is part of the Transportation Advisory Group and they’re both working on “complete streets” enacted by the city. Ask Andraea about it – what plans there are for installing sidewalks in this upcoming year etc. And get involved.
Have a good weekend, y’all! After you shovel your sidewalks, you can do some nice nordic skiing at Weston or other nice places in the ‘hood…. and enjoy this white stuff. The snow is perfect!! Dry soft powder… newly fallen….
Jane H, here is my shout out to you and everyone else who shovels their sidewalks, digs out fire hydrants, shovels their elderly neighbors’ walks without having to be asked, and make Newton a warm and fuzzy place to live even when it is 10 degrees outside.
We get Ted. You don’t like the Mayor. How many times must you remind us? As Jane H. stated, everyone’s working hard under tough conditions to make things work without pointing fingers.
Peace to all and good luck to those who have flights scheduled this weekend!
I’ve got your number, too Jane.
We have been shoveling our sidewalks and driveway, and clearing the nearby fire hydrant after each storm and after every street plow blocks it.
We are on a small road that is not a first priority for street plowing, and certainly not recipients of sidewalk clearing by the city.
Not complaining about any of that.
But, I am complaining about this–
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, when the street plows did really start coming by, the berms they left have left a single lane down the center, which is narrower than the length of my SUV. We have tried to widen the area at the end of our drive so that we can back out and turn in at least one direction without backing into the berm opposite us, or running into the ones on our side, as we complete a 7-point turn to leave the house. Our efforts were buried back in, at first, and now the berms themselves are so icy that we can’t really cut them back, even if we had a place to put the snow.
We did not dig out the other, smaller car, and it is now blocked in our driveway by the giant mound of snow cleared from everywhere else.
So, the SUV it is.
And now that parking has been allowed on the street (we are near the Art Center), the street is again covered in knocked-down slush and snow, and narrower still.
Whew! Felt good to complain.
Question- Do you think that the city could do some sort of widening so that I can get out and down the street? Or are we responsible to try to carve it out, ourselves?
And, I fell (in the street in Cooledge Corners) and injured my wrist and suffered a minor concussion, and cannot shovel anymore. My husband is able to do most of it, but not all. Luckily, we could pay for assistance. Never having had to hire one before, do you know if they will do what we really need done- digging out our vehicle and clearing it off after the storms?
Glad we lived here last year so that we could catch on to the whole snow thing before this winter!
Where are people putting their trash and recycling cans out for puck up? I just put mine on the sidewalk but there is a huge snow bank in front of it on the berm like everyone else’s.
Thanks to Alison Leary to sending out an email to Ward 1 to make sure that hydrants are cleared out. For whatever reason, and among all the sidewalk, driveway and road clearing, It hadn’t occurred to me to check our local fire hydrant (corner of Charlesbank and Newton Corner). It is absolutely buried. Going to have to try take a hack at it in the morning, but the snowbank is 7′ high and 10-15′ around.
@Carrie – I hope you’re able to find help, and heal quickly from your injuries.
@Marti – I’m putting mine at the end of my driveway.
Thanks mega. They were able to reach them on the sidewalk. Thank goodness. My next door neighbor put his in the driveway and that worked too. I couldn’t do that because of getting out early for work. I was glad to get them put back before the snow starts.
Carry, wishing you good luck getting help with your road and a quick recovery.
Doug, you need help. Hope you get it.
I find it inexcusable that one entire lane of traffic is lost on Washington Street in Newtonville Square. I thought the City was cleaning up these areas and widening the streets. But alas, no. What I did see and hear for most of last night was the school near me being plowed and cleaned out. Why? There is no school for the next week! Why aren’t these crews being used to knock back the huge piles of snow on corners, widen roads, especially on some of the smaller side streets?We have two fancy new sidewalk plows that I have yet to see doing anything. Where is the National Guard in Newton? I don’t understand the priorities….
I’m haven’t seen results either, particularly on roads with parking. They are so narrow they barely have one lane open. Walnut street in Newtonville center is almost impossible to navigate. I parked there yesterday. Getting from the street to the sidewalk was almost impossible, while there trucks trying to get by just layed on their horns, getting back to the car I had to go from CVS to the crosswalk and walk back to my car in the street and then trying to pull out into traffic I had to squeeze between trucks and cars who could themselves barely get through. Smaller streets were impassable. And now, here we go again.
By the way, the Newtonville parking lot was full of snow and cars parked any way they could. That’s why I parked on the street. I’m not an advocate of leaving it just a parking lot but the 80 unit building is too big.
We’re empty nesters and don’t need weekly trash pick-up, so we didn’t put the trash out last week. I noticed a few friends who are in the same demographic doing the same. Most likely we won’t put the barrels out this coming week either.
For the first time in our lives, we’ve hired someone to plow the driveway. Our new snow blower arrives on the Feb. 18th. My prediction: no more storms after that date. 😉