Here’s your chance to wax poetic about anything Newton-related.
Just be nice.
Snow day open thread
by Greg Reibman | Feb 9, 2015 | Newton | 35 comments
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
Here’s your chance to wax poetic about anything Newton-related.
Just be nice.
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
>> your chance to wax poetic
I’m feeling pithy …. “Snow – GO”
Snow joke Jerry.
My dogs are sooooo over having to go in the snow. And I fear what the 20′ by 4′ area off the back porch, the only place they’ve been willing to venture to do their business for almost three frozen weeks now, will be like when (if?!) all of the snow actually starts to melt.
I missed a doctor’s appointment last Monday that was rescheduled for today. Beginning if I’ll get to see my surgeon before she performs my surgery in March!
I’m remembering this:
http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/newton/2008/02/23/newton-north-can-we-build-it-yes-we-can/#axzz3RDdTX3F5
Not sure if I have it in me to take the crew back out.
@Amy. I had to look at the last photo to see that this was in miniature.
Spent a couple of hours doing this:
http://www.tout.com/m/m1kqbv?ref=twfcp3ai
Now I’m doing today’s snow.
I just finished shoveling the front walk out to the street. The sidewalk is now a lost cause. There is no place to put the snow and the City left a big pile on the walk a few days back that had turned to ice when I went to take care of it.
That said, I think the City has done a great job keeping ahead of the snow. 62+inches of snow over the past 10 days and things are still moving. A lot of that is new equipment, but a lot also has to do with improved management and coordination. This would have been unthinkable back in 78.
BTW. Can anyone tell me why when all this snow has fallen as light powder, there are great mounds of ice and wet snow in what the plows pile up where driveways and walkways meet the street??
@bob burke – salt melts the snow.
Jamaicans want less snow ‘mon.
We wish our mayor was Ted Hess-Mahan
Just wanna say… City Hall should have been open today [Monday]. The government should not be shut down by a snow storm.
Really Mike? Which services that are closed are so essential that it was worth having people driving in this weather when it’s been requested that there be no non-essential travel?
During the blizzard when the Governor shut the city down except for essentials, I was a tad miffed with a ban being issued and that cars were being ticketed for being on state roads. I was of the opinion that reasonable people would make good decisions if, as worked in some other states, they were asked to keep businesses closed and to stay off the roads unless essential. Now that we have had two more storms during which the governor “followed my advice,” I have changed that opinion. Evidently there are a lot of unreasonable people who do not close their businesses or stay off the streets when asked and there is chaos on the streets and the MBTA, which will now stop running at 7:00 pm, and essential workers are not able to get where they need to be. It’s a real shame.
image “for the love … stop snowing”
Newton schools cancelled Tuesday again as well
Nice snow day reminiscence Amy.
Snow. . . . . .
I am concerned when you melt. . . . and flood my basement.
From the WHDH website:
Thursday: Cloudy with developing snow in the afternoon and continuing into the night. This looks like another big storm for eastern MA (6-10″). Potential exists for this storm to evolve into a blizzard. Stay tuned! Daytime temps in the low 20s.
They are joking, right?
I walked over to Needham to shovel my parents’ driveway this afternoon, and I was very happy to see that quite a few Newton homeowners along the way had already shoveled their sidewalks. Great job Newton!
Unfortunately, walking along Nahanton St. to the river was, as usual, a death-defying stunt.
Does anyone know why Nahanton St. has never had sidewalks? I know that a handful of roads such as Dudley Rd. get “country byway” designations, but Nahanton St. seems to be a different case because there’s enough room for a sidewalk the whole way between Dedham St. and the river, on the south side of the road at least.
Has there ever been any discussion about building sidewalks on Nahanton St. or at some point did the city just decide it would be the exclusive domain of the automobile? (Automobiles that are often stuck in traffic jams, to boot. Some country byway, if that’s the excuse.)
Nahanton Road by the CRCC golf course (south side) does have a walk, but it is unpaved- I know this because I got intimate with the surface after a bike crash last July after the July 4 microburst (ah, the days when our worst weather was severe t-storms with gale-force winds followed by road debris!) – I am not surprised, however, that it hasn’t been cleared.
Getting out in the car this morning, the streets in the Charlesbank/ Jefferson area in Newton Corner still needed a lot of work. People are pretty good about clearing walks. Our street has a park on one side that the city never bothers to clear, but I don’t think it’s necessary to have that side of our small street clear to be honest. Also, every corner (such as Charlesbank/Nonantum Pl and Nonantum Pl/Jefferson) has a 10-foot mound of snow blocking the corner. That is actually typical. Again, our little neighborhood has small streets and there’s not much else to do with it, so we make do.
Hoping that by next week (after what is hopefully our last big storm) things start to get to normal a little.
Newton Mom- I hear you on the melting- I tend to be lucky in that regard, but this is probably a good time to invest in pumps – well, after we clear the porch roofs to prevent leaking.
Oy.
Doug – sorry to hear about your intimate encounter with the Nahanton St. path. It’s often mud, so hopefully that softened the impact.
And yes as you say it’s not cleared of snow – never cleared, in fact.
I did a search to see if there had ever been any plans over the last 50 years to put in a real sidewalk, but couldn’t find anything.
Anyone watching the GM of the MBTA’s press conference? She’s gone off the rails, is stuck in defensive mode and just can’t dig herself out. Puns intended.
She said that she hasn’t had one conversation with the Governor in the last three weeks. Why does he keep trotting out Karyn Polito when he hasn’t even spoken with the head of the MBTA? Given the situation, wouldn’t you think he’d be meeting with her daily, if not twice a day?
I heard that too. Baker went on afterward and said that he talks with Stephanie Pollack at the DOT all day and she deals with the GM, that she is who Beverly Scott reports to and he has nothing to do with the MBTA except a seat on the board. I am surprised that Stephanie Pollack isn’t holding press conferences. He did say he was meeting with them either today or tomorrow. What a mess and he wants to cut 14 million from the MBTA and 26 million from the DOT.
Classic graphic on page one of today’s Globe for anyone interested in comprehending definitively how much snow we’ve had.
Since this is an open thread, here’s a question unrelated to the weather… Does anyone know why there are cameras on top of the traffic signals at Beacon and Centre?
@MikeStriar,
Are you sure they are cameras? They might be Opticon signals for the Fire Dept to control the lights to get through the intersection. I’m not sure but I thought they were going to begin using this system…
@TWT– Thanks. They look just like cameras, but I bet you’re right.
Interesting that Charlie Baker is taking Beverly Scott to task for mismanagement of the MBTA. Charlie of the no new taxes pledge is just upholding the legislative financial budgeting that has historically kept the MBTA a transportation system worthy of something less than third world status. Europe may be in trouble euro wise these days , but have you ridden the systems in Scandinavia lately ? Charlie needs to take a vacation !
Jeffrey Sachs a former Harvard economist and Newton citizen ( ex neighbor of mine) now at Columbia, wrote a book a couple of years ago entitled “the Price of Civilization”. The price of a first world civilization he says is taxation and he cites Northern European ( socialist ! ) nations as great examples of modern day civil societies. Having traveled there extensively in the recent past I believe him to be correct.
We nickel and dime ourselves to the point that we cannot keep our school buildings from being razed, snow off our roadways, zoning regulations from strangling us, our sewers flooding our basements, trees lost at a record pace, etc. etc. etc. Its getting grim and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Blueprintbill, Mr. Bulger’s Transportation Authority doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a structural spending problem due to its lavish retirement benefits for its unions and bureaucrats.
If an MBTA and a state employee earning $60,000 annually each retired after 30 years of service at age 60, the T employee’s pension would be over 50 percent more than that of the state employee. And unlike state employees, the MBTA retiree could also collect Social Security benefits.
MBTA employees can still cash in unused vacation time and back pay during their last year of work to “spike” their pension benefit. The practice has been prohibited for state employees.
http://pioneerinstitute.org/news/study-calls-for-mbta-employees-to-be-transferred-to-state-pension-system/
Joshua,
Structural Spending Problem- Infrastructure Problem- whatever,.. a $5.5 billion dollar debt ( see todays NY Times page A-14 ) will have to be dealt with, either by it ridership, taxpayers or both.
It’s a third world system,.. Why? !,, It’s labor force ?
I think Representative Geoff Diehl said it best when he noted the following:
” A T ride in Boston is $2.50 ($2.10 w/ Charlie card, $2.65 w/out, so I round for simplicity). So, both ways is $5. And 20 times a month = $100.
– I have a loan of $300 for my car, insurance is about another $100. Gas is another $100. Maintenance and annual registration is, at least, another $100, and then there’s parking and tolls, sometimes. So the privilege of getting around in MA for me is $600 or more per month.
– My credit is tied up for 3 – 5 years with a loan on a quickly depreciating “asset.”
Yet the Massachusetts driver is the one that has 40% of their gas tax diverted from roads and bridges to other transportation needs.”
In addition, 20% of our sales tax is diverted from the general fund to that white elephant known as the MBTA.
The MBTA’s debt problem is due to its failed stewardship and slovenly management practices. Taxpayers have paid plenty to fund the T’s infrastructure, but the money has been spent elsewhere. I propose we fix the elsewhere in the system, and use the money from elsewhere to fix our infrastructure because the money is there. Gimmicks like the automatically increasing gas tax do not solve the MBTA’s management and stewardship failures.
Given all this snow , travail, and down time, one wonders about potential repercussions.
Will local maternity wards be crowded 9 months from now?
Will the cities Inspectional Services and the Newton Historical Commission be over run with demolition requests as a result of all the cities elders cashing in on their respective real estate investments ( protected by the all too permissive zoning regulations and easy special permits) , and getting out of dodge, for warmer climes? After all there is no moritorium ! And no easy senior housing yet either.
Perish the thought that America’s working class should be able to live comfortably in retirement, as they do in any other civilized country.
{sarcasm} They should be forced to work until they’re 90, or if they’re too lazy to do that, then they should get their food from the soup kitchen! {/sarcasm}
Michael,
You can understand the problems that the retirement benefits are posing right now on our budget. No one is saying that blue collar workers like city workers shouldn’t be able to live comfortably in their retirement years (atleast I’m not). The people that have been elected (and still get elected) are the true problem. The money could have/should have been put aside. Instead, the money was spent in increasing government beyond what it should be and no one taking responsibility for the mismanagement of the funds and no one is making them accountable, either. Who now pays for it??? We do.