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Citizen complaint of the day: People shouldn't have to hotfoot it in front of King's Chapel
By adamg on Fri, 01/02/2015 - 4:05pm
A steamed citizen calls into the Mayor's Hotline:
Caller reporting there is a solid covered manhole in the street on Tremont St at School, in front of church, with extremely hot steam coming out. The steam burned her foot and she is concerned for people's safety.
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Comments
steam-foot combustion temp threshold?
anyone?
Depends
If your foot has been exposed to heat for long periods of time and is slightly charred, it's a lower temp than if you just momentarily step on a steaming hot piece of metal. Unless there is a raging inferno below and the metal is actually glowing due to a malfunctioning furnace or something.
Also could spontaneously ignite if hit with a blow torch AKA a blue wrench.
The things you learn on Uhub never cease to amaze (and confuse - depending on the source).
Anerobic?
Or with unlimited access to air?
Reign of Fire.
And so it begins.
Depends
"steam-foot combustion temp threshold? "
Square feet or cubic feet?
K-9s Beware!
That would suck big time!
School Street side of King's Chapel
For many, many years I've noticed two manholes in the sidewalk on the School Street side of King's Chapel, which constantly have steam coming out of them. I've never noticed one on the Tremont Street side of the chapel, though. This is part of the underground network of steam utility pipes in downtown Boston. They were originally part of Boston Edison, historically a byproduct of some of their electric generating plants. Then the Edison spun them off to a company called Boston Thermal Energy. Since then there have been a couple of owners; now the steam system is run by Veolia, a conglomerate based in France, which bills itself as the largest operator of steam district utilities in the US.
That being said, I've often felt the heat of the steam as I've walked over those manholes, even in the summer, and I've sometimes wondered if it was a safety hazard to have them in the narrow sidewalk there. Most of Boston's steam manholes seem to be in the middle of the street -- where they may affect moving cars, but usually not pedestrians.
(The city's report says that the manhole "belongs to telephone co.", but that's a clear error on their part.)
Who writes answers for Mayors hotline?
No matter who it belongs to, wouldn't it be up to or even just nice of the City to, in the very least, contact owner and see what's going on with it? It sounds like such a lazy response.