Boston not ticketing major property owner in Roxbury for failure to shovel snow
By adamg - 1/27/11 - 4:47 pm
Probably because that property owner is itself. Blackstonian posts photos of city inaction, including the scene on Humboldt Avenue where an abandoned building owned by the Department of Neighborhood Development has sat untouched, its sidewalk never touched by a shovel - a sidewalk on two streets, since the building is on a corner.
Comments
thanks boston!
I was riding my bike to work in this neighborhood this morning and didn't see any bus stops cleared of snow. People had to stand in the road up and down Warren, which is a busy street.
Ringer Park
The sidewalk outside Ringer Park on Allston St wasn't shoveled this morning, which was frustrating. That should be the city's responsibility too, right?
Parks Dept
parks dept always seems to take days and several complaints to the city before it clears the sidewalks around parks (never mind the paths IN the parks - forget it. Oh, and BRA owned properties never see a shovel either...
Press Release from the City
Press Release from the City of Boston:
Due to resident demand, property taxes will be going up this year to pay for 30 Bobcats to remove snow from sidewalks in front of city-owned property. Thank you for your input.
No really, they should
1) We'll increase your taxes and do the work for you
or
2) The neighborhood can ban together and get the community job done themselves. Fines for not doing so after 48 hours.
Seems fair to me!
How many miles of sidewalk?
How many miles of sidewalk abut city-owned property? There have to be a ton when you count all the schools, parks, public works depots, neighborhood centers, etc. And they're probably much more difficult to plow, per mile, than roads, since it's tough to move your sidewalk bulldozers from place to place in the city.
Yes, it's a wee hypocritical of the city to ticket at the same time it can't shovel its own sidewalks, but maintaining its own sidewalks has to be a pretty monumental job.
Which is why the city should
Which is why the city should clear 100% of sidewalks with special sidewalk plows. That way, the whole scale thing is not an issue.
We don't ask property owners to clear the street, even when the property may extend to the middle of it. Same should go for sidewalks.
wading through sidewalks
I would agree that the City has more sidewalks than capacity to clear them, and that makes them ticketing people for not doing something that they too are not doing on some of their properties seem hypocritical, but.. I think one issue here is they do clear some sidewalks and not clear others -- under what criteria? Same question applies to who gets tickets and who doesn't.
Not like the MBTA needs another expense, but they really should be digging out the bus stops (unless the City is supposed to do that?).
bus stops - depends ...
On who maintains the sidewalk in front of their property, the condo complex across the street from me shoveled out the steps from their units to the stop, as well as a passageway. As of 10 am, they had not shoveled any of their other sidewalks, so people going to that stop had to trudge through the snow. I have no problem with them clearing out their folks first, but give some thought to the general populace.