As I walked to the T this morning, I observed several snowplows getting a jump on clearing the streets as the first couple of inches of snow (4-6 predicted for Somerville, where I live) had fallen. Somerville does a great job of keeping the streets well-cleared.
Similarly, some of my neighbors had gotten a jump on the snow by clearing the first couple of inches off their sidewalks before heading to work. As in many cities and towns in Massachusetts, Somerville residents are required to clear their sidewalks of snow within a reasonable time after a storm stops or face fines (and cranky neighbors).
As anyone who's been walking around the urban and semi-urban areas around Boston this month has no doubt noticed, however, sidewalk-clearing policies still result in spotty walking conditions. In my neighborhood, where there's a high volume of foot traffic, I see a lot of people (myself included!) giving up on sidewalks and simply walking in the street.
Every time I see this, I think about how much we need to change the prevailing approach. Why does the city clear streets but not sidewalks? (Some cities do plow sidewalks with small plows, either throughout the city [Brookline] or in commercial areas [Belmont].) In more rural areas where few people move about by foot, this may be a sensible distribution of resources on the basis of people's use of sidewalks, but in areas with high numbers of foot traffic, it simply doesn't make sense.
People should be the beneficiaries of municipal policies, and in densely populated areas well-served by public transit, that includes people on foot as well as in cars. It's past time to realign our narrow, car-centric thinking to a more inclusive approach.
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I just called the city of Newton to complain about the lack of sidewalk clearing on my walking route to work, from Watertown Square down to Newton Corner. Ever since the last storm, there have been several lengths of sidewalk that are dangerous for walkers and impassable for anyone in a wheelchair or whose mobility is otherwise impaired, including one business who plows their parking lot, but dumps all the snow onto the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to walk around.
Apparently the city is responsible for clearing some residential sidewalks, but owners and occupants in business districts are responsible for their own--with no penalties if they do nothing. Any idea what I can do when city officials have said they won't fine negligent owners and occupants?
Newton is an interesting case!
In Massachusetts, cities and towns have the option to institute a snow clearing ordinance or bylaw (see our fact sheets on snow clearing here and here) to require owners or occupants to clear sidewalks. Newton used to have such an ordinance, but at some time in the past, repealed it. This is a pretty unusual move, and I don't know what was behind it, but it suggests that the snow clearing issue in Newton is unusually complicated! And, on this issue, that's saying a lot.
The sidewalks can be miserable, for sure. So can the bike lanes! I've been biking from Davis Square to Kendall area, and finding the bike lanes unreliably cleared, with mountains or sheets of ice covering part or all of the lane at times. I have to either drive in the traffic lane or swerve in and out of the bike lane to avoid the ice. I think we should be doing a much better job with both bike lanes and sidewalks!
I, too, have felt relegated to second-class citizenship as I slip and slide across the sidewalks in the cold while a large SUV driver maneuvers comfortably and safely past me. Where are our priorities?
I agree. Walking down centre st in JP to Jackson sq T, snow in front of many buildings (including BHA complexes) are poorly if ever plowed, and this is the way many of us get to the T. Then, getting off at Haymarket and walking along Cross/Atlantic, Meninos people have cleared all the streets, but the sidewalks are again terrible. And since the big dig, these sidewalks shrink to only shoulder width in parts to accommodate all the extra traffic, so its that much more miserable. Why can Cambridge and Somerville clear sidewalks, but Menino cannot. Does he not realize some of us walk.
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