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Cambridge to residents: Snowplow drivers don't really hate you

The City of Cambridge advises:

... Please don't take it personally if we plow snow back into your driveway, but as we work to keep streets passable, it is often unavoidable. ...

Via Wicked Local Cambridge.

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One relatively low-hanging bit of snow-clearing fruit I just saw at lunchtime today was a crosswalk curb cut.

An old woman was trying to cross a street at a busy intersection. The streets and sidewalk were clear enough, but there was wall of snow in the curb cut.

I'm wondering whether it would be practical for street snowplow operators to avoid pushing snow into curb cuts, and to push away any snow immediately in front of them.

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I've only driven a small lawn tractor with a plow, but even that didn't have a whole lot of "aim". I can't imagine a proper city/state plow truck doing it.

The best system I've seen was in Wellesley; after the plows come through, they send a Bobcat through to scrape the sidewalks and scoop out the curb cuts. I don't know how efficient that'd be in the city, since it's the property owners, not the city, that does the rest of the sidewalks here.

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Interesting.

Seems like plowing the street can block up the curb cuts without blocking the sidewalk.

So the city might clear the curb cuts shortly after being blocked by city plows, as a function separate from the normal clearing of sidewalk and curb cut by property owners.

I wonder about the logistics/economics of having Bobcats around snowed city streets just to clear the curb cuts. Perhaps there are enough sidewalks abutting city property that the city must clear, that the Bobcats can do the curb cuts on the way, without too much additional cost?

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Not that plowing blocks up the sidewalks, but that since Wellesley had the Bobcats out to do the sidewalks anyway, the curb cuts were no big deal. I doubt it'd be economical for Boston or Cambridge.

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Shame the plow operators are all out plowing right now. :) I wouldn't be surprised if some of them knew how they could do it with their normal equipment or modest modifications to same.

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Well Cambridge does it in the business districts. I dont know about the residential areas, although Porter Square can be a bit crazy (cambridge side near the old KFC) can be a little crazy in the winter.

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It's an historic anomaly. As I understand it, well into the nineteenth century, snow removal was left to residents and businesses. Over time, the larger municipalities assumed the obligation of clearing particularly large snowfalls from major thoroughfares. The key thing to bear in mind is that nineteenth century streets tended to be relatively undifferentiated spaces, equally used by vehicular traffic and pedestrians. Sidewalks were still somewhat rare - often constructed by businesses for the convenience of patrons, and hence, maintained by them.

The key turning point was the introduction of the automobile. As people became increasingly reliant on cars, they demanded that their governments clear even small amounts of snow off of all streets, and not just major arteries. An elaborate infrastructure resulted, and in colder climes, snow removal became a major component of public works budgets. But it's not as if policy-makers sat down and decided that streets are worth shoveling, but not sidewalks. It's just that a public groundswell emerged for street clearance. In the intervening years, sidewalks have become more durable, and technological advances have made clearing them far more efficient. (It's the difference between hiring laborers to shovel snow off of planks embedded in mud, and running a bobcat down a series of concrete panels.) But no one's gone back to rethink the process.

Why does this matter? Well, snow removal presents a classic problem of the commons. It's not particularly useful for me to shovel my sidewalk unless the sidewalks in front of the adjoining lots are shoveled, too. As anyone who's ever tried to push a stroller down a Boston-area street within a week of a snowfall can attest, that's no safe bet. The result is that normally pedestrian-friendly cities are friendlier to cars than to foot traffic after snowfall. Moreover, there's a tremendous inefficiency in the present system. Ordinances requiring snow clearance abound, but are nearly impossible to enforce. Who wants to ticket the old lady who didn't manage to clear her sidewalk? Businesses are easier to force into compliance. Large institutions, municipalities, and businesses tend to clear their own sidewalks remarkably quickly after it snows, proving that it can be done. But contractors load their equipment on trailers and drag it from site to site, instead of just running it down the sidewalks.

We have a model for efficient snow removal. In Business Improvement Districts, fees are levied against local businesses, and the proceeds used to hire contractors to clear the snow. Everyone benefits. The removal is vastly cheaper than if every business had to clear its own sidewalk. The clearance of contiguous sidewalks makes the entire district friendly to pedestrians, increasing patronage. So why the hell can't we do this for dense urban residential streets, too?

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Hey I live in an apartment but not one of the really large building. Everyone around me lives in one too so we are kind of the worst of both worlds, we live in dense quarters but the sidewalks are almost never touched (the property owners dont live here) and it becomes nomans land. Id sure be willing to be assesed a small amount every month as a resident if it resulted in someone coming by and cleaning my sidealks and all the sidewalks around me as well. Im not sure how they would get my money as they would most likely have to charge my landlord who in turn would charge me. The problem is that either becomes part of rent or a fee, and that makes her less competitive with similar apartments in other cities that dont attach that fee. Id be all for it if there were a way to make it work.

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The problem is that either becomes part of rent or a fee, and that makes her less competitive with similar apartments in other cities that dont attach that fee.

Yeah, and that pesky trash removal makes her less competitive, as does properly maintained plumbing. Cry me a river.

Funny enough, the apartment buildings and businesses in JP by and large had the clearest walkways. One of the large buildings, a former school, had 3 dudes shoveling/snowblowing/spreading melt.

Meanwhile, across the street, these assholes decided that while they'd shovel out their precious driveway with their SUVs (all FOUR of them), they would barely shovel the Greenough Ave side of their property, and wouldn't shovel the Elm Street side at all.

One of their neighbors a bit down Greenough Ave had paid for snow removal- again, a group of 3-4 guys had shoveled almost the entire sidewalk (not just the usual lazy strip), laid down sand/melt, and had plowed the U-shaped driveway

This asswipe shoveled out his tiny driveway (where you see the Toyota parked) but didn't shovel *anything* else all weekend.

When I walked by this house, the owners had cleared a sliver of sidewalk and had moved on to precisely and carefully clearing a wide swath for their two BMWs (one with commercial tags and a barely-visible business name, for the tax writeoff.)

If you think the city should do sidewalk clearing, then tell your councilors, or vote people onto the council that think so too. In the meantime, SHOVEL YOUR WALKWAY.

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So, stop bitching and report the homeowners:

Code Enforcement Unit at (617) 635-4896

http://www.cityofboston.gov/isd/pdfs/snow.pdf

As the fines pile up, they'll get he neighborly message.

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Thanks for taking the time to compose that.

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I think there is a legitimate reason for better snow removal in business areas and residential areas alike, even on sidewalks. If a person walking by falls on that stretch of sidewalk that hasn't been cleared and/or salted down after a winter storm falls and gets injured, the property owner or the town or city, be it a residential or a business district, could be liable. So, if a person/city/town doesn't want to run the risk of ending up in a major lawsuit, that's just as good a reason as any to get better snow removal, not to mention making it safer for people to use the sidewalks.

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I'm not sure that liability is a great motivator for Cambridge property owners. There certainly are a lot of of property owners who don't clear their sidewalks.

To give an example of low risk of liability, I've been seriously injured in two sidewalk falls attributable to negligence (one time, inexplicably extreme) by property owners in the last few years. Both times, the fall was in my neighborhood, and I was more concerned with getting home and dealing with the injury than I was with guilting or suing someone. I ended up never saying a word to either property owner. I suspect that's a pretty common scenario in Cambridge.

Hey, my knee is sore right now from slipping on the uncleared snow in front of a laundromat this afternoon. A big bag of quarters is not going to make my knee better. :)

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I find it hard to believe that the average person in Cambridge doesnt say anything when they slip on the ice. Its been my experience that Cambridge, as much as I love it, is full of uppity people always looking to "write a letter"

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Absolutely. Good point. But if my feel that Cambridge (with the exception of law students) is not perceived as *litigious* is correct, then I think perceived liability risk would be low. I totally made that up, though.

I suppose the way to get an answer to this is to do some ethnographic research or polling. At the same time we're finding out why snow and ice removal is spotty, find out people's priorities and preferences regarding snow and ice removal.

(Heh. Suppose that the city takes over snow and ice removal in exchange for a, say, $40/yr increase in taxes per property. Would there then be a program like gun buybacks, but for snowblowers?)

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Im sorry but the call for a poll on the issue proves my point lol

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I've been infected by Cambridgitis. :)

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When I lived near Fenway, I hated walking past the abandoned Mobil station, since they never bothered to shovel, and the sidewalk quickly became an ice-mogul slalom.

I seriously considered finding the address of the owners, and hiring someone to shovel all the snow off the property and dump it on their front steps.

Never got around to it, oddly enough.

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Eh, if they are anything like the residents of Allston and Somerville they are just gonna toss the snow back into the street anyway which drives me insane. They finally get these streets cleaned and these morons toss the snow back into the street.

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I was talking to someone from Charlestown, and he complained that he had nowhere to put the snow from his sidewalk - so he shoveled it in between the already-snowed-in parked cars on his street. He knew it was illegal, he knew it goes back into the storm sewers, he even had a neighbor come out and give him a dirty look - yet he didn't seem to internalize that to "I shouldn't be doing that."

Bunker (Hill?) mentality.

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The sidewalk needs to be cleared, and there's already snow between those cars. All of the snow is eventually going to melt and end up in the storm sewer anyway.

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I could have sworn that it was illegal to shovel snow into the street, because leaving it on private property reduces the amount of drainage into the storm sewers (which then overflow and bad septic things happen).

But I could be completely wrong, and it sounds like I may well be...

Which is good, because the guy's like 6'5" and it would be dangerous to tell him not to do something.

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While I am a stickler for not putting snow back onto the main drag of the street I am a little more lenient about putting snow between parked cars as the snow has to go somewhere afterall. I just cant stand driving down the street ad coming across a pile os snow and ice in the middle of a main street, frozen over. Its even worse on the side streets when everyone does it so the whole street is slush, and the plows are never coming back because the storm is over. They think they are doing good, because they figure it will melt on the black asphalt, but they fail to understand the laws of thermodynamics in the process.

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I suppose you mean the snow will freeze again? I know you're not supposed to shovel snow back onto the street, but, it really does usually melt pretty quickly, with all the salt on most streets.

And if you're shoveling out the end of a driveway, you are often actually shoveling the street itself becuase the plows only go down the middle of the street, so you're moving it from one part of the street, where it's all piled up & frozen, to another part, where the broken up snow really does melt & then dry up.

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1/2 on 1/2 off is my opinion, since it has to go somewhere.

Little on the sidewalk, little between cars just over the curb. But make sure not to fill over a storm drain.

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These people have no right whatsoever to put the snow back into the street, or onto the sidewalk, especially when it's just been shoveled and cleared, and salted. They should put the snow up and away from the sidewalk, and onto their front lawns and not to cover any storm drains, either.

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