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How are the streets & sidewalks in your village
by Greg Reibman | Feb 2, 2015 | Newton | 49 comments
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Roads were dicey at 7 a.m. But not nearly as congested as my garage which, after two weeks of no Tuesday trash pickup, is beginning to resemble the church from Alice’s Restaurant.
It’s crazy – they’re completely covered in a thick blanket of white stuff that’s continuously falling from the sky.
I don’t even want to look right now. Newton Corner finally got (mostly) cleaned up after the blizzard, I’m sure we are back to square 1 for at least today.
As a Thursday garbage day resident, I’ll try not to gloat Greg.
Don’t think of it as snow Jerry. Think of it as 12” of confetti celebrating the Super Bowl victory.
Was planning to shovel, then go to the Y. Started at 9am, shoveled continuously til 1pm making multiple passes til I was caught up, by which time the Y had closed noon. Watched cars need a push.
I think this is accumulating faster than last week’s storm, and the the plows aren’t plowing as wide yet. I’m on a corner, and to keep the passageway from the sidewalk to the corner curb cut open through the snowbank, I’m shoveling about a third of the way across the street.
I just took a walk around West Newton Square and it was pretty bad. Most of the businesses are closed, so the sidewalks are a bit of a mess. The roads didn’t look too great, either. The plows are doing a lousy job on our street again. They haven’t done the sides at all with this storm or the previous, so both times we’ve been shoveling well into the street just to exit our driveway! Isn’t the parking ban so that they can get the sides of the street?
We got our walks and drives clear- waited until later on purpose, as the snow is pretty light (not wet and heavy, that is), and waited until neighbor’s plow came to go out all at once. Will have to come back though, but hoping it is for lighter cleanup.
I know that no one truly understands the auguries employed by NPS in determining snow days. But, do you think we have a chance at one for tomorrow?
It is me, not my kid, with fingers crossed. My in-house snow shoveller is away, and I am pretty wimpy in the cold. Hoping for more time to get my car and driveway cleared out.
@Carry – I have no idea, but I did hear from a city employee only about 15 minutes ago that they thought there was a good chance school would be called tomorrow given the pace of the storm and the school plowing/clearing so far. You can;t take that to the bank though.
Ding, ding, ding! – I’d like to bestow the Village 14 word-of-the-month award for your perfectly chosen “auguries”. I’m just back from a trip to the dictionary for that one.
Jerry-
Thanks!
I’ve been reading Ngaio Marsh mysteries while hunkered down. My vocabulary is being renewed.
As of 4:54 p.m. Monday, the Snow Day Calculator (yes I learned this week from Alderman Norton that there is such a thing) says there is a 32 percent chance school will be cancelled tomorrow.
For better accuracy, I suggest asking Gail Spector.
School should definitely be cancelled. Roads are bad, sidewalks are worse. Cleanup cant be done in under 12 hours and it will be snowing for another few. Should have been called already.
Boston has already called school off tomorrow. Judging from the state of sidewalks (was just out clearing mine) and roads, I can’t see how they get the kids to school tomorrow.
Kids…must…go…to…school…!!!
Wellesley just called no school tomorrow.
(Cabin fever, @Emily? 🙂
In all seriousness, my son has had a few papers and a speech which have been delayed now for the better part of a week. We do need them back to school.
Waltham just announced no school tomorrow.
We’re slowly being surrounded by closed schools
Love the Snow Day Calculator (which now says 14%!).
Guessing the call, if it comes, will come late as Newton has been (apart from this past week) been pretty conservative in calling days off.
Watertown is closed.
As a resident on the Tuesday garbage route I’m OK with the one-day slide, despite having 2 weeks of garbage sitting around. Let the Monday folk struggle to get their bins near the street by early morning. Besides, we had a toddler visiting last weekend and I think the organic reactions from those 12-day old diapers will generate enough heat to clear my driveway.
Newton Closed
http://www.newton.k12.ma.us/site/default.aspx?PageID=1
And according to the Newton Public Schools web site, as of 7 PM Newton has cancelled school on Tuesday. I haven’t received the phone call yet, but the kids all seem to know already. With hundreds of them checking the web site periodically word probably spreads fast once they update the web site.
I have a question:
Has anyone seen our approximately $500,000.00 snow melter?? Do we even still have it??
Tom, I was going to blog it last week but never got around to it. Snow Dragon sighting at Newton Centre triangle. Pretty cool.
Adam, that picture just showed plows with a storage container. Where is the dragon??? I’d love to see it in action.
I get it, they plow it into the container and the container melts it. So the container is the dragon.
Anyone know how much we ended up getting in Newton?
That dragon is sure paying off this year! I know it is expensive to store and maintain something only used 2 months out of the year but we desperately need it with these back-to-back 1’+ storms. Now lets get that sucker up to Newtonville/Nonantum!
As someone who lives off of Needham St and is an MBTA commuter, this time of year is dreadful.
Trying to walk to the Highlands T stop is so hazardous, I’m surprised that no one has been injured yet. The sidewalks on Winchester St between the Rt. 9 overpass and Needham St (near the cemetery) are never cleared. I’ve complained to the town but they say those throughways are controlled by the state. I have no idea who to complain to with the state.
Not that the owners of the buildings between the overpass and Walnut St on Centre St are any better. That new construction of the house next to Tedeschi’s has a mountain that is impassible, which makes people walk in the street on an already narrow, crowded stretch of road. Of course the adjacent properties aren’t clearing their sidewalks either, so it doesn’t matter much I guess.
Of course I can report those owners to the town right? Except when I did that for the Wednesday storm, I got a reply back that the ordinance covering sidewalk removal wouldn’t go into affect until Monday. You know, the day when we got more snow. Boston was doing just fine handing out violations to people (including John Kerry) not clearing sidewalks last week, why can’t Newton?
So if any of you are driving down Centre St/Winchester St/Needham St, please be careful, and realize that those of us walking in the street really would rather not be doing that.
So, I had already put in a request to widen my street (can’t get to storm drains – under 5 feet of snow); undig the hydrant (under 8 feet of snow in my dead end street) and replow corner (It was completely shoveled at 11 PM, and now I have two sidewalks to nowhere, since the corner has 8 feet of snow pushed on it). I use the sidewalks! Kids use sidewalks.
Then four hours later we get the call from the city from the fire chief. He has VERY valid ideas. I am concerned if a commuter parks on my street, and the fire truck or snow plow (or me) can’t get around the commuter parker!
And what to do with my two weeks of trash. Where to put the trash cans and over flow. Any ideas?
For state roads/sidewalks I would bring it up with our state reps… they will know who to call. Of course the new Secretary of Transportation is a Newton resident…
My house is shoveled out. Our cars are shoveled out.
Tonight I’ll take on shoveling out two spots for our trash barrels in the continuous six foot high snowbank along the street.
From City Hall:
“Within 30 hours of the end of a storm, residents are required to clear paved sidewalks abutting their property. Please remember to clear your nearest fire hydrant.”
And yet, a week after the big storm, the city has not plowed much of it’s property. In Waban Square, the only clearing has been done by merchants and the MBTA. The East bound Beacon street sidewalk and the ramp and sidewalk across from BOA and Starbucks are still not done. To say nothing of sidewalks on traffic islands and other city owned property.
The real world intrudes on the sidewalk ordinance…
The sidewalk and curb in front of our house is straddled by a huge mound of snow, which we bisected slightly to provide a place to put our trash/recycling bins on collection day. From above, the result looks rather like a mother whale about to rub noses with her little baby beluga. That’s about the best thing I can say about it.
Most of the sidewalk along our street has a path, of varying widths, from one end to the other. But the mountains of snow all along the curb have shrunk our street to one lane (barely); the street is often used for parking for events taking place at the nearby school, so we’re just waiting to see how that all works out.
We — and more than a few of our neighbors — are really concerned about where we’re going to put any more significant snowfall that may come in the next week or two. It’s potentially dangerous to add to the mounds that are already there, because you run the risk of blocking your sightlines to oncoming traffic for when you’re trying to pull out of your driveway. That means having to truck the snow you’re shoveling to a less congested location, which only adds to the time and energy spent on snow removal — and the lovely aches and pains that result from it.
Kind of too bad, because I always liked winter, and found a certain joy in being all sheltered inside watching snow decorate the neighborhood. Well, that joy is pretty fleeting when you have to go outside every couple of hours, on the theory that it’s better to shovel a few inches every few hours then a whole big honking mess of it all at once. Damn adulthood.
Apparently the guys who I pay to clear my driveway and sidewalk split up and the contact info I have is for the wrong one. They cleared my driveway and part of my sidewalk, but not the other part (and that neighbor didn’t do her share either). I’m in no shape to shovel and am trying my best to reach someone.
As for garbage pick-up, I just put the bins at the end of my driveway – no way I was trying to clear space for them elsewhere. Don’t know what we’ll do with more snow.
@mgwa
I wish.
Unfortunately the city doesn’t pick up trash from our tiny street (Spring St) so I have to drag the barrels to Winter St – it’s another UpperFallism
Ugh. Having to go from Spring to
Winter. Sounds kind of depressing without Summer and Fall.
@Greg Reibman – I could go from Spring to Summer … but that’s up hill.
How is it that the new multi million dollar mcMansions in my neighborhood complete with 3 car garages and attendant generous driveways are seemingly exempt from the side walk snow removal ordinance. The driveways get cleared but not the sidewalks ! Too much snow to expect enforcement ? Is cthere an exemption for snow over a certain depth?
@Jerry – Oy!
OK, let’s just go all in with this
If @Jerry’s link is correct, snow shoveling is about to look a lot more like open pit mining.
There are 3 models that forecasters use, the EURO, the NAM and the OZ. That graphic is from the Euro, and it has not been updated since last night. It is not a radar image, it is a model. Having said that, it looks like Thursday will be a smaller accumulation and Monday, snowpocalyspse may be upon us again, according to my favorite forecaster.
@Chris Can we develop snow shoveling into an Olympic sport by 2024? Isn’t there some rule that the host city can add one sport to the competition?
We’re supposed to fly out to Chile on Tuesday PM. Hope we make it.
I predict we will all make it to chilly on Tuesday pm.
Sorry Bob…..
…..And everyone else.
It’s Thursday. Sidewalk plows still have not reached our neighborhood to clear the school route (Bowen) The last time they did, they left ~6 inches of snow under the blade. The amazing thing is that many, perhaps even the majority of the residents managed to shovel out their sidewalks, with a few notable gaps which force people out into the street. Perhaps if the city were more forthcoming about it’s status (equipment failures? lack of manpower?) people would come together and shovel out the rest.
The streets look pretty good, though, considering.
And why did anyone want to give the city the task to clear all the sidewalks again?
Adam, I agree. The City has not touched the Cypress St. sidewalks around the Municipal lot. I phoned it into City Hall 48 hours ago. Still nothing. Very disappointing.