Too many sidewalks unshoveled, so no school in Boston on Thursday

Are not in good enough shape to clamber over 6' snow banks. (yes I know, I did it to myself)

There is a lot of finger pointing from both sides to take care of the snow. The DPW folks have been working straight out to stay ahead of the storm, they're exhausted and doing their best. I don't envy them their jobs.

The homeowners and renters who shovel sidewalks because they're supposed to have worked hard, too. When a cleared sidewalk is shoved aside and destroyed because we need to have the streets clear, understandably frustration abounds.

When we have snow amounts as we did Tuesday, priorities need to be decided upon: streets or sidewalks. There aren't many places to put it. Choose one, do it well.

And have patience for at least 3 or 4 days.

The hard part is when sidewalks are done haphazardly depending upon address. I'm looking at you United Baptist Church in JP. You don't get to clear the Forbes side of your property around to the front door and ignore the Bolster and remainder of your Centre St property. Yes, it sucks - I know you all have your own homes and probably vehicles to clear, but you also have a responsibility at this address as well. Rent to Own is a past offender as well, but I didn't check them yet.

I think it means waiting for businesses and residents to clear the snow from sidewalks and crosswalks put there by plows that get paid by the city.

I attend a BPS school, and I know quite a few people here who go skiing. Stop talking about what you don't know anything about. Furthermore, have you considered that there are reasons to have a vacation other than skiing, such as rest, time to get community service hours, and time to study for the SATs?

... kids stuck in sweltering hot, unairconditioned classrooms at the end of June.

Thanks to the EPA cars and trucks and factories don't spew thick clouds of exhaust. Take a look at China or India where they have no EPA and the air and water are foul. Thank you EPA for making the US a much cleaner and safer place to live.

Not a big fan of breathing clean air or drinking clean water, Mark?

So pedestrians have to shovel and walk through two feet of snow, but car drivers flip out if every snowflake isn't cleared for them by plows paid for in part by pedestrians who don't even use the streets? It isn't as simple as you claim.

I would say education is more important than bad drivers ramming into each other. If you drive in a snow storm you are getting what you asked for. Joe SUV doesn't care that schools are shut down as long as the road to Wal Mart is clear. Our priorities are messed up.

because I was going to light your comment up.

I will add only that when you consider what you get for the tax money, the discrepancy that Stevil points out is even more outrageous (from a Boston taxpayer point of view).

Alas, my decade and a half as a Brookliner is (somewhat unexpectedly) coming to a close, so UHub will be looking for someone else to extol the virtues of the paramecium-shaped Town.

Never fear, however, I'll be chiming in from an even more despised municipality soon.

My condo pays $40.00 per man-hour for shovelers. You think the taxpayers (I'm pretty sure you're not one of us) want to foot the bill for that?

Whether the city cleared sidewalks or you hired a private company, you would be paying something either way. Or you would be paying with time by doing it yourself.

I've heard the argument that some people would rather hire their own contractors to clear the snow than rely on the public works department. I can understand that position. But consider this: suppose we cleared motorways the same way that we cleared sidewalks. That would cause an immediate problem: some sections of the motorway would be plowed, and some sections would not. But the street is only usable once the entire length has been plowed, because it forms part of a network. Any section that blocks traffic renders the entire motorway almost unusable and blocks the network.

The same applies to sidewalks. The management company of my apartment is very conscientious and clears its sidewalks right away. But the neighboring building is more derelict. So I can walk out of my home and along the sidewalk for about 30 feet, and then I run into a big wall of snow. That renders the sidewalk network useless. So I walk in the middle of the street, where at least it's been cleared consistently.

Having every management company hire separate contractors to come shovel out snow is also very inefficient. Think about it. They all have to separately make their way to my street, and then back home. They operate at different times and don't always integrate well with each other. One might push snow onto another one's recently cleared sidewalk for instance, or up against a curb ramp. Or they just don't work together to make a coherent path. The results are very inconsistent. And if even a single landlord does not clear the sidewalk in front of his or her property, then everyone else's work goes for naught until that situation is rectified.

It would make a lot more sense for everyone on the block to get together and jointly hire a snow-clearing company to shovel out the entire block in one coherent, consistent way. And then that repeats at the larger level, until you realize that it's better off if the city is consistently maintaining and monitoring its network of shoveling and plowing sidewalks. Just like they have opted to do with motorways -- because everyone seems to understand that a piecemeal job simply doesn't work when it comes to clearing the way for motor vehicles. It would be nice if people realized that the same logic applies to sidewalks.

The points about labor and effectiveness are well-taken. But that doesn't change the fact that sidewalks form a network, that inconsistent clearing of the sidewalks renders them useless, and that you still have to pay one way or another no matter if sidewalk clearing is done privately or publicly.

back in the 1960s when we used to visit our grandparents. So the practice has nothing to do with them having a ginormous shiny new DPW.

Live Free or Die, until your property tax comes due.

The dark coal ash increases the absorption of solar heat to melt the snow and ice within days.

Only problem are things like lead, mercury, and other bad stuff in the ash.