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No school in Boston tomorrow

Walsh announces school shutdown

And remember: This isn't Loon Mountain.

Mayor Walsh just announced BPS schools will be closed due to the storm. City community centers, however, will be open. City Hall will also be open, but only staffed with emergency personnel.

Walsh said a decision has not yet been made about Friday.

The city has 40,000 tons of rock salt ready to go. Walsh said city workers will be working as hard as possible to clear the roads before Friday, when any slush will freeze rock solid as the temperatures plunge.

The storm will be an officials city snow emergency, so get your cones, chairs and toilets ready - unless you live in the South End, where space saving is prohibited.

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Comments

Early this morning, Walsh's staff announced that this press conference would happen this afternoon, which means they probably decided to close the schools later this morning. Yet instead of letting the public know right away (by email, phone call, and press release) he waited until the afternoon to tell everyone when he's in front of the TV camera.

This is a really, really shitty thing to do.

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They've been predicting blizzard conditions in the Boston area for the last 36 hours. Did you need the Mayor to tell you school would be canceled on Thursday?

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They probably had this decision lined up and ready to implement since at least this morning. However, the way these things are done (besides getting reports back from all the departments on readiness) is to wait for updated weather reports that come out around midday. They started their notification chain after that, and then went into the 2:15 press conference as scheduled.

I turned off the press conference when some idiot asked the mayor about Trump, Korea, and nuclear buttons of various sizes. I hope I didn't miss anything important (that is to say, "on-topic important" and "within the realm of Marty being able to do something about it")

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This is a really, really shitty thing to do.

Why? I've heard countless people saying "why did they cancel school before a flake of snow has fallen", and they make no sense, but what you say doesn't make sense to me either. If you'd found out in the morning, as opposed to mid-afternoon, what would have changed in your life?

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Parents have jobs. Employers have employees who have kids. People have cars parked on the street that need to be moved. A few more hours of notice can help a lot with planning the next day.

If Walsh is announcing a new housing program, or a new department head hire, then of course it can wait until the next press conference. But sitting on school closing and parking ban announcements? Why do that?

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Parents have jobs. Employers have employees who have kids. People have cars parked on the street that need to be moved. A few more hours of notice can help a lot with planning the next day.

I'm entirely in sympathy with the logistical struggle we all go through in the winter. But do you really mean to say that you can't even begin to make a plan and nothing can go forward until you hear from Mayor Walsh, and then everything can proceed? Everyone I know has a backup plan IN CASE OF cancellations; they don't need to wait until there IS a cancellation to make a plan - and once the cancellation is on, they don't need an extra four hours to make it happen.

I mean, your situation is your situation, but if you want me to believe that you really depended on Walsh telling you at 11 am vs. 3 pm that school was canceled, I'm curious about the specifics of that.

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Look at the amount of towing done yesterday and tell us again how delayed declaration of snow emergencies has no impact.

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"We will spend as much as it takes to spoil drivers. As for pedestrians and cyclists? We have no intention of helping them. In fact we plan on hurting them by plowing snow onto sidewalks, crosswalks and bike lanes. Sidewalks in front of city owned land like schools will not be shoveled at all. Like I said before, I'm a car guy."

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I’m all for bikes. I’ve been a bike commuter. But this comment is ill-timed. It is ambulances and fire trucks that are the first responders to all when they are in need. So clearly, some balance and prioritization is in order here in the face of a potentially deadly storm.

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As somebody who works in a hospital (you know, where those ambulances and EMS are going, and which are all open in the city despite dozens and dozens of other workplaces being closed), a lot of our driving, suburban living coworkers are all "teleworking" and "sick" today, but you know the walking, T riding, bike reliant folks are all here. Not looking forward to trudging through unshoveled sidewalks and risking breaking an ankle for the next week to look after folks who think transit riders should go screw

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...when you're simply making your own statement. Or are you pretending that that's a literal quote, and if so, from whom other than "Kinopio's fevered imagination"?

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There is a top banner up on http://www.mass.gov

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on a regular schedule, but substituting shuttle buses for the Mattapan line and running commuter rail on a reduced schedule. Top banner at https://www.mbta.com/

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Is Gina Fiandaca smirking?

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will not be plowed to the curbs even though there is no parking on these streets, but meanwhile on the Seaport you won't even know it snowed there come Friday morning.

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behind the podium. We need at least a few dozen people standing around in order to be assured that the city has things under control.

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The residents of the City didn't need anyone to tell them when they could and couldn't use space savers and everybody respected each other. Now the City has made it competitive and created an aura of space saving as being evil.

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...as you've apparently skipped over a few parallel universes.

I'd recommend fixing it and returning to your native reality as quickly as possible (especially if you have someone other than Agent Orange sitting in the Oval Office).

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Pre-Menino (i.e. pre-1993) the city had fewer cars and more street parking then it does today. When you combine scarcer parking with space saving, then both problems get dramatically worse.

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It's not official 'til I see a video from Tory!

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No Bruins game either, called off.

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... as well.

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