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Winter is coming - and with it the return of the 48-hour space-saver rule
By adamg on Tue, 11/24/2015 - 1:47pm
Boston officials gathered in front of a giant pile of sand and one of the city's two new mega snow blowers today to vow they're ready for what winter might bring.
Mayor Walsh said the new snow movers will help Boston begin to emulate what Montreal does, rather than what Boston has traditionally done: Remove snow as it falls, rather than just piling it up along curbs and on street corners.
Public Works Commissioner Michael Dennehy said the new snow blowers, when combined with dump trucks, can move 2,000 tons of snow an hour off streets - which he said was a key reason he decided to buy two of them, rather than buying snow melters, which, at best can melt 350 tons of snow an hour.
Walsh noted that after last winter's storms, the city had to spend considerable amounts just in overtime for removing all that piled up snow and ice, long after the storms had ended.
"We're going from a city that used to push snow around to a city that actually takes the snow off the street," he said, adding he hopes to set aside money to buy a new giant snow blower a year for the next few years. Dennehy added that private snow-removal contractors will get paid a bonus if they buy similar units and use them on city streets.
Walsh started a press conference at the DPW facility on Frontage Road by declaring the city will continue the long-standing practice of letting residents who dig out spaces save them for 48 hours after the end of a snow emergency. He noted the one exception is the South End, where the city will continue last year's pilot of banning all space savers all the time.
Dennehy said the city is looking to find additional places to stow snow, because the higher the snow gets piled, the longer it takes to melt - the last of the Tide Street snow didn't melt until July 14. He added, though, that even if the city can't find additional land for snow piles, he remains committed to keeping street snow from being dumped into Boston Harbor. He noted DPW crews pulled 400 tons of stuff out of the snow piled at Tide Street - 400 tons of things that did not wind up in the harbor.
City officials added they are looking to add more beds to the city's shelter system for the homeless - and that the state is looking at possible sites outside the city for shelters to help relieve the stress on Boston.
Walsh said the city would consider a return to the one-way street experiment in South Boston if conditions warranted - and that the Transportation Department is looking at other gridded parts of the city where that might also work - in East Boston and parts of Dorchester and Roxbury.
Walsh also said that "We've been giving guarantees by the T that service will be up and running."
New city snow blower to Mother Nature: Bring it.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Good, because
This big investment in new snow-clearing equipment guarantees it won't snow much this winter.
Source: Murphy and his laws
snow removal
Had a conversation last year with Councilor O’Malley and told him that they need to plow curb to curb when there is snow emergency and then get rid of the snow right away. Much of last year’s problems were created after the first storm. Hoping or thinking that there would not be more storms the snow never got plowed and removed. The Councilor was quoted in the paper saying the DPW was doing a good job and I vehemently disagreed. Other cities and towns do not have these removal issues. Hopefully they learned something last winter. Tow anyone in the snow emergency no parking zones, plow curb to curb and remove, truck the snow away.
Not surprised.
O'Malley is a turkey. He's allergic to common sense solutions and quality of life enhancements. But he'll take every opportunity to seek publicity when it comes to self-centered trifling (sunscreen for gingers and Bieber tweets). No wonder he has zero private sector experience.
A sentiment clearly shared by
A sentiment clearly shared by his constituents who re-elect him with the most votes ever for a councilor....
when he is running unopposed
I wrote in Mickey Mouse and would be happy to vote for someone with some substance.
2013
2013
Matt O'Malley 18,204 votes 85.08%
Luis Valerio 3,088 14.43%
You're not entitled to your own facts. When are you filing your papers to run?
When are we going to have a councilor that earns his pay?
If he actually did his job there wouldn't be a problem.
I like
Matt O'Malley, my city councilor. He has had a good staff, and is responsive himself to any queries. I probably see him out and about on average of once a month. That is not necessarily at events, but in the Arboretum, at Roche Bros. etc. He works hard, and is responsive to his constituents. I am really puzzled by the same people who chime in over and over again to criticize him. There are councilors that I think are not half as responsive to their constituents as he is, and who have views contrary to many.
And I bet he puts in more hours for his job than most people do for theirs.
Do his runs count as hours on the job?
I have to say, it is a great way to have office hours, get exercise in, and encourage running in the district.
Put Up Or Shut Up Time
As soon as you put up or shut up - pull papers or get a new hobby. A quick look back at your comments here show you have a vendetta against this guy. We sure you aren't posting this from 5th floor City Hall, maybe another councilor's office?
and then in a sleepy low
and then in a sleepy low turnout year, re-elect him AGAIN with the most votes for any district councilor in the city. Someone's confused...
Are you his boyfriend?
Because you sound like you're in love with the red haired turkey.
Curious
what cities don't have these removal issues? And I'm talking about cities with roughly the same weather as Boston.
Edit: and I agree that streets with no cars/emergency streets should definitely be plowed curb to curb.
snow removal
Common practice is to plow with the storm, as it falls and then remove snow form emergency arteries and sidewalks as soon as possible. Usually done at night after hours. here we have agencies arguing over who should clean the sidewalk, bus stops and crosswalks. BTW O" Malley was of the opinion that Centre Street West Roxbury and Washington street to Forest Hills was well plowed last winter. I disagreed..
Somebody has to pay
In a perfect world, yes plow curb to curb and truck every flake of snow away so the street and sidewalks are clear. That's really the Cadillac version and I don't want to pay for an Escalade most of the time.
For most storms and many whole winters, we get 6-12 inches in a typical storm and then nothing for weeks after that. The piles of snow on the side of the street slowly melt and all the effort, greenhouse gases and cost of moving that snow from the street to a snow farm is avoided. Last winter was the worst ever and letting the snow pile up was a bad plan (we can all agree on that.) However, for most streets, it's really OK to just plow it to the side and let nature take it's course. If a long stretch of bad weather is forecast then by all means, stay ahead of it by trucking away more snow, but let's not kill ourselves and the budget by fretting about every blessed flake.
NYC
does a huge chunk of its plowing via the Department of Sanitation and its vehicles. It's part of the job.
Boston subcontracts out its trash and recycling, so they do not have this infrastructure available.
My first few winters in Boston, I was stunned by how few proper city vehicles were available to help with plowing. (Adding insult to injury, I was in the Land The City Kind Of Forgot Unless It's Time To Grandstand About Fake IDs, aka Allston.)
I'm from Minneapolis, lived
I'm from Minneapolis, lived there for 35 years. The snow there is cleared curb-to-curb in 48hrs on every street. Our snow emergency game is strong. Know the rules, ticket and tow anyone not in accordance. Clear streets and revenue for the city. Win-win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qsgs1ainI
No need for space savers if the city would do it's job. I have never seen such a shitshow as Boston last winter.
From upstate NY here
They know how to deal with a lot of snow there, too. They use road graders.
Me too, but...
They don't have the parked car issue that much of Boston does. In New York they also assume that if you live in a rural area that you have a vehicle that can handle some snow and that you know how to drive it. In Boston they assume that everyone has bald tires and a learners permit.
with all due respect to the curb-curb scope...
herein lies the problem for pedestrians; the preference for vehicles means sidewalks are sno-shelves forcing people to negotiate slippery public ways with cars and trucks. It is stupid. Last winter I don't know how many times I saw older and young folks walking side by side with cars in a seriously dangerous situation. Suggestion: remove the snow from sidewalks as noted above; or, enforce sidewalk clearance rules, and make safe ped travel a priority this winter.
And the problem with sidewalk clearance is...
This is a problem in cases where the building comes right to the sidewalk, or there's some other obstruction that prevents removing snow away from the street side. So many Boston sidewalks just don't have room for snowbanks if you plow curb to curb and then shovel sidewalks on top of that.
The other problem with sidewalk clearance
is this idiotic system of laws, and the enforcement of those idiotic laws, that require private property owners abutting the PUBLIC sidewalks to clear those spaces. If the City put half the effort into actually clearing the snow with their workers that they do in funding and supporting the ISD
revenue agentsinspectors, they wouldn't have this problem. And the sidewalks would get cleared much more quickly and effectively.snow removal
Sidewalks on main streets should be removed with 48 hours, trucked away. Same with bus stops etc. It can be done.
...Somerville?
...Somerville?
Manchester, NH. They had no
Manchester, NH. They had no problem clearing the streets last year. The city of Manchester even clears sidewalks themselves (using Bobcats and some special-purpose sidewalk-sized snowblowers). They were out 24/7 last year; took two days after a storm to finish the sidewalks, but they got it done. I walk everywhere and only remember it being a mild annoyance; some sections of sidewalk covered with icy stuff (but that happens every year; they never salt or scrape down to the same level as they do the roads), and snowbanks alongside sidewalks 10' high. Manchester also has a 100% parking ban, on every street, during snow emergencies (there are several big garages here that are sufficient for every resident), so they can just blast down streets one by one.
Not that good of a comparison
First, over the course of January and February, Manchester got half the snow Boston did in that time period.
Second, my guess is that Manchester treats snowfall like Montreal does, meaning the budget and equipment is more than a bit stronger than Boston's budget and physical plant.
Still, if you are going to compare last winter, stick with the first point.
(note- I edited my snow numbers. I forgot to check Boston's official totals.)
I believe that Councillors
I believe that Councillors only make recommendations to the administration on many of these type of issues.
I would like to see the City go back to even and odd sides of parking like we saw a few years ago. That would widen the side streets
Confused
"He noted the one exception is the South End, where the city will continue last year's pilto of banning all space savers all the time."
Pilto?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
More on "pilto"
Hope this helps:
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilto
"kiitos , eniten hyötyä "
"kiitos , eniten hyötyä "
Eipä kestä
;-)
It's how Piltown Man parks
Or how I can't type. Fixed.
pilot?
pilot?
Ah!
I should have figured that out. Thanks.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Ahh yes, the 48 hour rule.
Ahh yes, the 48 hour rule. Except last winter many of the city's less civilized residents kept space savers out for 2 months, not 2 days. Who could have guessed that a system based on vigilantism, threats and hoarding of public property wouldn't work and couldn't be contained to 48 hour periods?
Put up a bike shelter
Get one of those car-sized tent things. Then the people in neighborhood could put their bikes there for 48 hours, out of the way of people walking.
Space Savers RULE!
Want to avoid the city garbage truck taking your space saver? Put a dead mini fridge, bedbug-infested chair/sofa/futon (living in Brighton those are easy to get) or old television/computer monitor out. It's classified as Hazmat.
They won't take it.
Your space is saved!
Here we go again Kinopio
I am in favor of the use of space savers for those of us who shovel our spaces, for as long as necessary, and so are all my neighbors, who are quite civilized, as am I. And last winter, I disagreed with many of the anti-saver posters, such as you Kinopio. Savers work quite well in my little slice of paradise in Dorchester. Vigilantism and threats are minimal to non-existent and don't happen nearly as much as you would like everyone to think .
By the way Kinopio, calling me and all my neighbors "less that civilized" isn't the best way of engaging in a civil dialog, but that's how you roll. I can only wonder why you are such an angry person. It appears that you are "less than informed" and "less than honest". If you lived on my street and had to shovel a space, you and I both know you would be the first to use a space saver.
And the city, despite the 48 hour rule, hardly ever picks up space savers. Most of the people in my neighborhood use the big blue recycling conainers, and not one has ever been picked up to my knowledge. So Mayor Marty can pretend that he cares for people like you by announcing the 48 hour rule, but in reality he approves of long term space saver use if necessary, and proves it with virtually no enforcement.
Maybe things are different where others live, but in my neighborhood we use space savers, we like space savers, and the system works quite well.
Don't feed him
Look, I like to take credit for creating him, and I was pondering replying to his irrational screed, but then I remembered that there is nary a flake on the ground, and none expected in the foreseeable future.
Either we'll have enough opportunities in December, January, and February to get into it or Adam will make us look bad by posting photos of cones on the street and 2 inches of snow on the ground. Honestly, I'm hoping for the latter.
Try going outside
Instead of judging people from your keyboard for being "less than civilized", based on a couple stories. I can assure you the system works quite well in my neighborhood, with a lot of mutual help and respect between neighbors. Elderly neighbors get taken care of, last year we were all out there having some beers while shoveling, one guy snowblowed the whole block's sidewalks, and more than a few people came over to push when my roommate's car got stuck.
It really sounds like you have a huge chip on your shoulder about all this. I'm curious - do you actually drive?
Is the blonde woman behind Marty Gina?
If so, did she talk?
looks like Gina
As the Commissioner of BTD; it would make sense that she would be there.
Curious, why do you ask is she spoke?
She's working on a ton of programs.
I'd like to hear more about what she's doing. My biggest interest lies in the changes the city has promised to make to our resident parking program. If I'm not mistaken, she's the one driving that effort.
Yes, that's Gina Fiandaca
She did talk, urged people not to block the box during and after snowstorms, did not address other issues, since the point of a press conference in front of a sand pile was to talk about winter preparations.
WHOA!
I totally missed the sand pile. Well, the drivers may not be happy but the cats will!
Is She Cheryl's Sister?
She is!
She is!
Driving what effort? She was
Driving what effort? She was in charge of the parking office for like 10 years and is now in charge of all of transportation. Except for one Globe article, nothing new has come up about the resident parking permit program since last winter.
If Walsh was willing to make any changes to resident parking, either charging for stickers or rationing them, he would have done it by now. On the other hand, it's not as if anybody on the city council has been riled up enough to hold a hearing on the subject. The issue is being completely neglected by everyone in a position to change it, and not because they're unaware of the problem.
Wasn't she behind the Zipcar street spaces?
I also thought she was credited with creating the pay by phone meter app.
Demand based pricing
That will be coming out soon. I assume she is behind that also.
Don't knock demand based pricing
On a recent visit to San Francisco, I got a prime spot for 25 cents an hour because the Giants were out of town.
My new tradition
An orange cone or its like is someone's way of saying "Great spot to throw the snow from the sidewalk into"
Cone
May I toss my son's dirty diapers near that cone too? Yessir.
good job, buddy
That'll show 'em.
That works...here's my OLD tradition:
An orange cone is someone's way of saying "please use this pylon as an opportunity to get some winter exercise by practicing the track and field event known as the 'Hammer Throw" (i.e., chuck the cone).
oh, here we go!
Time for all the people who don't drive or even live in Boston to come out of the woodwork and share their thoughts on why space savers are satan's creation.
It's like the hyper-local
It's like the hyper-local version of an Internet abortion debate.
and that the state is looking
As they should, considering a good number of them aren't from here anyway. It's time for these cities of origin to start doing their part.
Why is last winter the new standard?
The thread running through all of these events is that we are going to be ready for a winter like last winter. That strikes me as silly and inefficient. (I understand, however, that this is probably good politics, but if that is in fact true, that's a problem in and of itself.)
In the past 20 years, we've had one other winter like last (95-96), which, coincidentally (or not) is no. 2 on the list of all-time greatest seasonal snowfall for the city since reliable records have been kept. Using last winter as the standard of "what we should/will be ready for" seems like overkill and then some to me. It reminds me of all of these people who buy vehicles based on the thing that they do every once in a long while as opposed to what they do nearly every day.
I see this crazy on a much smaller scale, too. My relatives are insisting that I get a snow blower, because, you know, last year.
I shoveled last year - at TWO properties. Both properties (and their sidewalks!) were almost always the clearest on both of their streets. Was I sore? Hell yes, but I didn't need a fricken snow blower then and I don't now. Further, the statistical likelihood of getting anywhere near that much snow this year (or in the next couple of years) is tiny (and probably even smaller given the strong and strengthening El Nino - just ask your favorite ski resort up north, which is still not open). What's with the hysterics?
El Nino may mean warmer temps
El Nino may mean warmer temps overall but it also means more precipitation and it's not going to be so much warmer that that precipitation won't be snow.
Precedent
Snow removal has been a problem for years in Boston, it was just worse than usual this last year.
Here's my favorite part of the logic
After last winter, this winter, we'll have 4 storms, spread over 4 months, of a foot each, and we will think of them as a dusting.
I think the new removal equipment is great. As others noted, this is done in other cities. I can count a few more winters since 95-96 when the curb piles crept and crept to the point that driving (including buses, for those automobile adverse) became next to impossible. As for the rest of this presser, isn't it the same thing they remind us of every winter.
I am hoping for no more than 3 feet max this winter, preferably in 6 doses of 6 inches with warmups in between, but we'll see.
PTSD
Last winter's horror show felt like being buried alive. Honestly, just thinking about it makes me and a lot of other people anxious. I shoveled more snow, until I ran out of space to put it, than I ever did before, including in '78 or '95. My back still aches.
Logically, though, I know you're probably right. I don't have a snowblower either and no plans to get one.
I do not understand why "If
I do not understand why "If you're prepared for the worst, you're prepared for anything" can possibly be a bad strategy. Maybe if there were unsolvable budget constraints one should be engaging in a balancing act, like the T has to, but I haven't seen that in this case.
That last quote...
It snow blows my mind!
It snow blows my mind!
Snark
I read it as sarcasm or a bad joke or a poke at Baker.
The full "guarantee"
"We've been giving guarantees* by the T that service will be up and running."
* Does not include commuter rail, subway, bus, or MBTA ferry services.
1st space saver related murder =(
Coming Soon TM
You almost had me Mr Mayor
Till you mentioned that the suburbs would take in the homeless and that the T will be up and running .
Two snoblowers
Will never see the neighborhoods. These are obviously going to be used in the South Boston Waterfront, Boylston Street and the Financial District. All the neighborhoods will have to settle for the crappy plow the snow around method.
Two snowblowers won't put a dent in the snow.
Not to stand in as spokesman for the PWD but ...
Couple of things (both noted in my original post):
The city is trying to encourage private contractors to buy their own Big Ass Snow Blowers by agreeing to pay them extra if they use them on city streets this winter.
The city is looking at these snow blowers as just the first. Walsh said he hopes to buy more and more of them.
So, yeah, this first winter, there's still going to be street-corner snow piling, but look for that to decrease over time.
Decrease over time?
You mean no piles of snow on street corners come June?
Oooooo
Ooo a space saver thread....nope....... *quietly leaves the room*
They're all MINE!
Meanwhile, here's the performance art rendition of "Boston Winter 2015", as seen in London for Halloween. Perhaps the Yeti will invest in a new costume?
HA HA HA!!!
That photo is awesome!