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Councilors: Boston needs beefier snow-removal equipment
By adamg on Tue, 02/24/2015 - 12:10pm
All quiet today at the South Boston snow farm. Photo by Conventures.
City Councilors Tim McCarthy (Hyde Park, Roslindale, Mattapan) and Mark Ciommo (Allston/Brighton) say the past month suggests the city needs better equipment for clearing city streets in the winter.
The two say that despite valiant efforts of city DPW workers, all the snow led to "gridlock and dangerous conditions" across the city and that residents continue to struggle just to get up and down their own streets.
On Wednesday, McCarthy, a DPW administrator until his election in 2013, and Ciommo ask the council to begin looking at buying the sort of "oversized" snow blowers, snow melters and "other current technologies" the city does not currently own - and to see if the city can pick up any tips from other snow-belt cities and countries.
To deal with the deluge of snow over the past winter, the city borrowed and rented snow melters to dissolve the endless truckloads of snows being hauled to city snow farms in Hyde Park, Charlestown and South Boston.
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Comments
And how will this be paid for
And how will this be paid for? May I again suggest the city charge more than the current $0 for a parking permit? If drivers are going to act like they own the public road then they should at least pay for the part of it they store their vehicle on.
I can hear the argument now
I DO pay for this parking spot that I shoveled out in 1993 and have used a space saver for ever since!
Have you ever heard of an
Have you ever heard of an excise tax? Mine was over $600 for the 2014 calendar year. That is collected by the city of Boston. It is issued for all vehicles registered with an address in the city. The only way to get a parking permit is to have an address in the city. So, no, it is not free parking.
Registration fees, drivers
Registration fees, drivers license fees, mandatory insurance, excise tax, gasoline tax, the sales tax when you bought the car, the occasional traffic or parking ticket, and paying to park anywhere in the city but your residential parking spot... No, you don't already pay enough to own a car, you should pay more!
Well....
One alternative to spending more money on snow removal and plowing would be to do less snow removal and plowing.
Hello?
Have you seen the city? hard to believe they could actually do less snow removal....
Really?
5 feet of snow in a month, and roads are all drivable. Nightly thousands of truckloads of snow are taken to snow farms in the city. I'd say the City could have done A LOT less snow removal.
But here's the thing
Where are they doing snow removal?
I think that if we knew, for example, that they clear 5 miles of road a night, and last night (theoretically, of course) they cleared a section of Seaver Street in Grove Hall along with part of Chestnut Hill Ave in Brighton, and that the next stop is Meridian Street in East Boston, we would have the sense that things will improve in other places eventually. (Again, note, I have no idea how those three streets are.)
It's not just the 5 feet, it's 2 feet, then a foot and a half a week later, then another 2 feet a week after that. It's gotta be maddening that their work gets undone before they can move on. Over a week after the last big one, I am hoping to see more progress (and less snow falling.)
given that all that pays for less than half of road costs, yeah
"No, you don't already pay enough to own a car, you should pay more!"
I think the taxes and fees amount to about 40% of the cost of maintaining our roads. So yeah, actually...you should be paying more. 50% of Boston doesn't own a car and takes public transit, walks, or bikes. Why should we be paying nearly as much as you?
Are you saying that you don't benefit from roads at all?
Even if you don't own a vehicle you still benefit from roads. Goods travel to you using the roads. Many services require roads as well.
The excise tax is for
The excise tax is for everyone who owns a car in Boston. Some of those people don't use on-street residential permit parking. Others do. Why should people who pay for off-street parking have their tax dollars subsidize people who want to park on the street for free? The money to pay for issuing the permits and enforcing the regulations has to come from somewhere. And right now it comes (at least) from all drivers and probably from everyone else who pays taxes in Boston as well, since I'm pretty sure the excise tax money alone is not enough to fully pay for the residential parking permit program.
The bigger reason to charge for on-street residential parking, though, is to manage the demand for it. Because it's free, too many people have permits for the number of spaces that are actually on the street. In order to make more spaces available and reduce the amount of time people waste looking for open spaces, the city should charge a rate that results in 85% occupancy. (That means on every block, there will always be 1 or 2 open spaces.) No more driving around for hours, wasting time, money, and gas looking for a spot.
What am I missing?
Are you somehow under the impression that the only function performed by snowplows is to clear space for parking? Just how do you get from here to there in your off-the-street privately-garaged car, if not on plowed streets?
How much?
Do you drive a Tesla? My excise bill has been $42.50 for the last few years.
Another stupid tax formula
Like the fossilized state formulas for MBTA city and town assessments and Chapter 90 road maintenance funds, the state excise tax formula is overly simplistic and overdue for improvement. The RMV has no trouble at all putting a value on a vehicle when assessing sales tax, yet excise tax instead is simplistic and out of date.
$25 per $1000
http://www.mass.gov/dor/local-officials/municipal-finance-law/frequently...
You'd be paying the exact
You'd be paying the exact same excise tax to any town in the state, including ones without a parking shortage, where they can just make one pass with a plow and push the snow to the side instead of carting it away in trucks.
Have you looked at how much a
Have you looked at how much a parking space costs? I rent mine out for $2,100/year in Allston. So, you're $600 is hardly close to the going rate for parking.
The market rate for an on
The market rate for an on-street space would be less than that.
Seriously?!
I've never heard of an excise tax that high for one car, but then again, most of my friends who drive have beaters. What is your car worth?
New car?
When you first buy a car, the value is up there. It really drops off after that as far as excise tax goes (even in comparison to resale value.)
$25 per $1000 of resale value
However, there is a quickly declining percentage for resale value. So, initially, your new car is going to spike a very high excise tax. I bought my car new in the mid $30k range in Dec 2011. My first full year of excise tax was $840. The following year was $560. That suggests my car depreciated $11,000 in its first year. That didn't happen since it had only depreciated about $10,000. And last year, my excise tax was even less. It was $370...which means they only priced my car at $14,800 a year ago which is a joke. This year will be lower still and no 3-year old car drops over half its value in the first 3 years.
They don't actually figure out the real resale value of your car. They just reduce by a specific percentage on the original value each year until it bottoms out. This undercuts the actual value a bit, but it's safer and easier to calculate and nobody complains when they pay less tax than the actual resale value of their vehicle. So, yeah, for the first few years, your excise tax can be up there.
EDIT: corrected dates..was off by a year
Having grown up in NY(C) & having lived in Somerville for 10 yrs
UHub is my primary avenue of insight into what I consider the outdated municipal policies, tools, and equipment in Boston.
Parking permits are free?
Parking tickets are $35-50?
There's no alternate side system for snow removal, ever?
No snow melters? (NY has those)
No giant snow blowers? (Somerville bought one in September and has been using it daily with a convoy of ~10 dump trucks)
No 311 system?
The combination of "we've always done it this way" and "we don't accept ideas from anywhere else" is not working. Look at the role that kind of thinking played in the T disaster -- coupled, of course, with chronic underfunding.
I feel weird making these observations when I can't do anything or vote for anyone to help fix them, but I think we deserve better from the city government at the core of our region's economy.
NIH is huge in Boston
Not Invented Here is rampant locally because everyone thinks they are so smart and nobody ever thought of the answers before.
If there were more software engineers in govt., they would be accustomed to "borrowing" code and see what the best solutions are in the world.
The London Tube has good ones: charge higher fares and base them on distance traveled.
I think the word you're looking for is "provincial"
That's what all of this really is.
Oh good Lord, I am sick of
Oh good Lord, I am sick of the "charge for a parking permit" nonsense as the supposed solution to all street maintenance woes. We ALL benefit from having decent roads, whether we drive, take the bus, ride a bike, or ever walk anywhere. Car owners already pay a pretty decent sum in excise taxes. Yes, maybe a small fee for a parking permit would help, but the burden shouldn't fall exclusively on car owners. That's like saying only people with children should have their taxes go toward schools. It's for the greater good of the community to have an educated population just as it's for the greater good to have decently maintained roads.
Dear A
> It's for the greater good of the community to have an educated
> population just as it's for the greater good to have decently
> maintained roads.
And it is likewise for the greater good to have an effective and decently maintained public transportation system. If Boston area residents who depend on the T have to pay for maintaining roads throughout the state, those state residents who rely on roads should return the favor.
I don't disagree, but this
I don't disagree, but this article was discussing equipment to manage the roads. I also ride the T and agree it needs better maintenance.
the burden shouldn't fall
I would think the "burden" for parking on a street should in fact fall on the car owners and not the people who are not parking there. It'd be a user fee. Pretty straightforward. If you don't want to pay it, don't plan to park on a public way with a resident sticker.
Car owners have private spaces too
I agree that there should be a fee for Boston parking permits. Those who own parking spaces off-street are already paying for parking and don't need to purchase these permits. They are also not the burden that motorists who park on the street are. So, charge for street parking, and bicycle parking while at it, including Hubway station spaces!
And it's the 4:55!
Markkkkk on about the bicycles, AGAIN.
Hey Markkk, do you think the city charges restaurants that put tables on the sidewalk, or that occupy parking spaces with their valet service? I get the feeling they don't. But god forbid somebody lock up a bicycle.
Uhhhh, not to feed the stupid
Uhhhh, not to feed the stupid dragon, but the answer is yes and yes.
The Public Improvement Commission sets the yearly fee for a "sidewalk cafe" and the cost for a valet space is $40/ft of curb per year + $150 per sign per five years.
That's why they take over other space
They don't want to pay for what they use. At least in the Seaport, the valets use the bike lanes, cab stands and travel lanes for staging cars so they don't have to take them to the garages.
Check out the complaints on Citizen's Connect.
Seaport is different
Not managed by the city, as that is Massport property (the roadways, that is). Not sure if Massport even has a valet program.
Not defending anything, it is indeed annoying to get around the valets who have 3 cars stacked in front of Legal with one wheel in the bike lane and the other wheel in the middle of the travel lane, but there may not be an administrative program for them to do the right thing in this case. I don't know.
Seriously?
Forty whole dollars per foot? Really, that much? Gosh that must just about put 'em out of business.
So now the City Council's
an expert on snow clearance
Burt Lancaster - from Airport
Well, actually ...
McCarthy comes close.
broken record..
...i know I sound like one...just wish mr mccarthy would use his DPW prowess to make sure that public/pedestrian access (read: sidewalks) were cleared so folks don't have to walk on major roads, such as Fairmount Ave at the T. It would be a significant safety improvement for folks in this neighborhood.
Burt Lancaster?
So now Burt Lancaster is an expert on snow clearance, because he played one in a movie?
Never meant to imply that
It's just that the scene from Airport was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this item.
This may be true
But it's only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that the plowing quality on some of the major roads wasn't great. For example, on Main St. in Charlestown, all of the cars actually moved during the snow emergency near city square and the plows didn't come close to plowing to the curbs near CIty Square. As a result, cars can only park on one side and the 92 bus get stuck multiple times per day.
City regulations require
City regulations require plows to open one lane of traffic each direction. When snow is accumulating quickly, this ensures a clean, clear dry & safe travel lane.
We know what would happen when plows came closer to curb. People would stand beligerently at the top of their driveways, as they always do when a plow approaches. With snow piles like we have now, it could be a tragedy waiting to happen.
I continue to be amazed at
I continue to be amazed at the sloppy plowing jobs on busy roads which still haven't been cleaned up. For example, you can cruise along Memorial Drive in the right lane, only to suddenly have it narrow to less than a car width because the plow didn't stick to the edge.
In other states, they put stakes along the edge of the road so they know where to plow. Around here, they must be guessing, since the lines and curbs are totally obscured at the time.
sand
is it me or does that pile look like a huge pile of sand?
Microscale Glacier
Snow piles and ice piles darken up when they start to recede - aka thaw - a bit.
This is a small glacier. We had a small thaw. As they get smaller, they will get darker. Winnipeg's snow mound in early September was nearly black. This happens because they melt from the top and concentrate the stuff that can't melt.
Filthy snow, probably.
Filthy snow, probably.
And this is why....
Now you can see why they can't just dump the "snow" into the ocean. There's a ton (well many MANY tons) of crap in there that we don't want mixing with the sea life.
sand is crap?
The biggest problem is clogging shipping lanes.
crap is crap
In the pile are:
dog feces
sand and salt
antifreeze, oil, and other car related chemicals
paper and other trash
animal remains
dead bodies [c'mon there has to be at least one in there]
etc.
Snow farms contain so much crap in addition to sand
my commute passes by a snow farm, so as the seasons change I see it slowly melt every day. The only thing more surprising than the amount of sand leftover is how much OTHER crap is mixed in with the sand. "normal" litter like soda bottles, fast food containers and the like I expected. But the 2x4's, dead animals and car parts were a surprise.
Sand?
The photo looks like the pile of salt in Chelsea. Boston purchases every year and stores there until they need it. So I don't know what the salt/sand mix ratio is but you are more correct than not.
How about actually ticket
How about actually ticket homeowners and business that don't shovel properly or at all?
They're supposed to shovel the street?
This is about plowing, right? Plowing the street?
Shoveled sidewalk (corner lot
Shoveled sidewalk (corner lot) through all 96 inches, but couldn't make it through the 7x 7 foot pile of snowpack left by plows at the corner. Also in many cases people shoveled sidewalks only to have plows knock snow back into sidewalk.
Lets have a Beach tax
You know? Tax beach goers to pay for snow removal. Maybe Linehan can sponsor the bill.
It makes about as much sense as taxing alcohol for treating drug addiction.
But its Boston. So apparently it will make sense to some do-gooder.
alcohol tax
Addiction is Addiction no matter the drug. People of all ages with their drug of choice are hurt and hurt their families and society. Heroin is targeted as a crisis because people can die from it. Meanwhile, all addicts are killing a part of themselves along a slow, un dramatic path.
And let's not forget this was done with tobacco until the legislatures 'stole' the money for other uses and that was that for tobacco education, and tobacco use increases for some demographics.
We won't win in the long run.
Errr...
Wrong thread, Jim.
Tree huggers claim cars an addiction
and advocate more taxation of them.
Markkkkk
It's past time for your nap.
Long-term investment
The snow has been bad this winter, but it's not like snow removal went particularly well last year, or the year before. I think it might be worth the city getting some more equipment, or updating what they have and making some formal arrangements with some of the snowier cities to borrow some of their equipment in a pinch.
Biggest snow farm
is in Southie, but none of the snow has been removed from the Southie intersections.
DPW
I'd like a specific explanation of how road clearing is prioritized. On my residental street, it was great, no complaints given the snowfall amounts. The streets in 'downtown' Roslindale were well cleared and Walter, Centre and Belgrade are all cleared with some parking. However, Hyde Park Ave which I think is a more critical commuter road was still pinched as of yesterday. They've started clearing it today and that will help, but why wasn't that done before Belgrade or Centre? I don't get it.
Maybe those roads weren't filled with double-parked cars?
Well, except for Walter - I would disagree that it was "cleared" to two full lanes along its whole length before a couple days ago (except along the park of course - gotta keep Harvard happy!) A few folks on upper Walter St *still* have their cars hanging out into the travel lanes - even though the city has now done 90% of the work for them.
It's been bad everywhere - look how long it took Washington st in Rosi to get properly cleared because no one would move their cars - and it's still screwed up (as of this morning) west of Poplar because people insist on double parking outside B.K.'s and the salons. And Washington is a major commuter way and an official city and state emergency route!
When were people supposed to
When were people supposed to move their cars?
In Montreal, they tow cars, remove the snow, then put the cars back approximately where they were.
It's a well established system
1. Put up signs saying "no parking, snow removal" in the morning.
2. Tow after 9PM
3. Start removal at 10 PM (times are rough, but you don't do this between 6 AM and 8 PM)
I hate to make the comparison, and I know this winter has been epic, but Menino's Public Works people had a great system in place.
Temp signs and removal
Well, in the square, they put up the signs in the snow bank that said 'No Parking, Snow removal' and then presumably towed cars that were in the way and cleared South, Corinth, Belgrade, etc... I'd like to know why this wasn't done on major arteries sooner. Certainly Belgrade and Walter have tons of cars parked on them during normal weather - there wasn't an issue clearing those streets.
It's not totally realistic, but essentially if the city is going to have major streets posted as no parking during a snow emergency, then they should also be the top thing to get cleared prior to lifting the snow emergency, right? I'm hoping that tomorrow's commute through Forrest Hills will be improved due to the clearing on Hyde Park Ave today.
Were you down Hyde Park Ave today?
I drove down it tonight and the signs were up, so that's a good sign.
Of course, there were cars parked by the no parking signs, so I guess people don't know what's best for them.
I'm still hoping for a fully cleared Washington Street. We'll see what that happens.
How far down HPA, though?
Because when I drove down HPA around 4:20 p.m., I saw plenty of snow-removal signs along the Roslindale stretch, then a remarkable thing: The road plowed curb to curb for a couple blocks and then it was back to basically just one lane between Ukraine Way and the T stop - just the place where you'd think you'd want to get to two lanes first, not last.
I started at Blakemore
The signs were scattered, but there up to Dunkin Donuts, on the inbound side.
The best part- there was a front loader at work by the station, yet cars were still parked, right by the signs. Sigh.