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Rob Cheyne submitting comments re: the snow removal ordinance.
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The following is an email thread by Rob Cheyne on February 19-20, 2015:
On February 20, 2015, at 9:39 AM, Rob Cheyne wrote:
Hi Jaclyn,
Thanks so much for your response.
I’m really hoping for the best, but will remain unconvinced until the city actually takes some action. So far, all we seem to get is data about how hard everybody is working, and lip service about why certain areas get prioritized above us.
I’m a pretty reasonable person. I know everyone is working hard, and I know this year has been harder than most. I see all the trucks out and about, and I absolutely understand the need to prioritize, but every street should at least occasionally get a bump to the top of the list. Every property on every street pays taxes and deserves at least some consideration, even if it is somewhat less frequent than the main thoroughfares. Right now, we get the absolute barest minimum effort during the storm itself, with no follow-up work. A quick drive around my neighborhood indicates that lots of other streets get treated this way also.
If this situation were unique to this year, I would be incredibly more understanding, but it’s not. It’s simply this year's manifestation of a flawed snow removal policy, and this year has just finally pushed me over the edge to speak up about it. Each winter, there comes a point where the city declares “Mission accomplished!”, stops plowing, and we are always left with unsafe conditions on the side streets. Yes, safety vehicles can technically get by, but that doesn’t equal overall road safety.
No street should just get ignored for the entire season when we clearly have the equipment available to do something about it. The proposed plan to alternate parking annually that I keep hearing about is also kind of a joke - it will just shuffle the mess from one side of the street to the other, and will do nothing to actually solve the problem.
Something that would help greatly in the future would be a more enlightened emergency parking policy, and more proactive plowing on the side streets. Having emergency parking stay consistently on one side of the street for the entire season is a huge contributor to this problem. It encourages people to leave their cars buried in the snow, which greatly exacerbates the issue. I’ve lived in places where they regularly alternated emergency parking throughout the season, and required people to dig out their cars, and it was nowhere near this bad. The entire point of emergency parking should be that the side with no cars is open to be cleared of snow between storms so that cars can park there again, or at least so the road is safely usable. When the cars switch sides, the spots where they were previously snowed in should then be cleared. All of these steps are required for a complete solution.
But we’re way past proactive policies for this year. The route 16 snow banks are terrifying and extremely dangerous, and the snow banks on our streets are almost as bad. They’ve grown to a width of 4+ feet past the sidewalks, and some of them are over six feet high. There’s no place left to put the snow when we shovel, and pulling our cars out onto our street from our driveways is both challenging and dangerous. It may not be apparent from the vantage of a fire truck, but from the perspective of a passenger car, the conditions are extremely unsafe. It would make a huge difference if the streets around here could get the same treatment that streets like Pearl Street have repeatedly gotten. At least then we’d get a bit of a reset before the next time it snows. This is a public safety issue, and I really hope we don’t have to wait until somebody gets hurt of killed before taking action on this. Again, every street has residents, so every street should eventually get some attention.
Also, FYI - I noticed from some of the replies that some folks seemed fixated on the specific streets I mentioned. Those were just a random selection I just happened to drive down. The problem is in no way limited to just those streets.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it. I know that you guys have an unenviable job right now, and I’ll be the first one to say that you’re doing a great job on the main roads (and you always do). But the current policy for dealing with side streets needs significant improvement, and I hope we can all work together to improve the safety of our side roads.
Best regards,
Rob Cheyne
On Feb 19, 2015, at 7:29 PM, Jaclyn Rossetti wrote:
Hello Mr. Cheyne,
Thank you for following up with these questions and suggestions. First, allow me to sincerely apologize for not responding sooner.
We absolutely understand the difficulty and frustration that your neighborhood has and continues to experience relevant to snowfall and cleanup. As a densely populated community with narrower side streets and a significant amount of cars, snow always presents a problem for streets citywide. While I know that it feels as though certain neighborhoods are “neglected,” I can assure you this is not the case. The simple reality is that there are 462 public streets in Somerville, all of which we are responsible for plowing and all of which have received an historic amount of snow. No city in the region is built or set up to handle this amount of snow removal as I’m sure you’ve seen on the news. We’ve heard repeatedly however that conditions in Somerville are far better than elsewhere nonetheless due to our intensive snow hauling efforts. Currently, priorities for snow removal are being guided by the Fire Dept., which is sending crews to review every street and intersection in the city on a daily basis and then setting priorities based on the greatest safety needs first. We are systematically working our way through these safety priorities as we haul away snow. At the same time, we are compiling resident requests and concerns and cross-checking that information with Fire Dept. information to ensure nothing is missed in our planning.
This week, between our own resources (staff and equipment) and contractors we have hired from across New England, we have more than 250 pieces of equipment working 24 hours per day, 7 days per week to haul snow from public streets. Our crews are literally working around the clock, with a total of just 6 hours of break time to eat and sleep, every day to clear as many streets as possible. At the same time, crews are also hauling snow from main roads and crosstown streets that support two-way traffic, but are not currently wide enough to accommodate the traffic. In addition to numerous other priority steps, a large number of side streets will be addressed in the coming days as they provide important access - both walking and driving - to schools, hospitals, and other important areas. Some of the streets you mention below should be addressed on that list in the coming days. In the past 4 weeks, more than 111 million cubic feet of snow have fallen on our public streets alone (not including snow from sidewalks, private streets, lots, etc. that have built up in the snow piles as well), so as you might imagine it is a challenge to get through this as quickly as we would ideally like to do.
To step up these efforts and in an attempt to expedite snow removal, we’ve hired every contractor we can get (they are in high demand) and asked for every resource the State will send us. We are hauling so much snow, we’ve had to rent multiple snow melters and open additional snow farms. One of the new sites will be the paved lot at the former Powderhouse School, so you’ll be able to see just how much snow is being removed in West Somerville and across the City.
Again, I apologize for the delay in my response. We too have been on emergency duties. If you have other questions or would like to discuss any of this further, please let me know.
Best,
Jackie Rossetti
Deputy Director of Communications
City of Somerville
From: Rob Cheyne [<mailto:rob@bigbrainsecurity.com>]
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2015 9:55 AM
To: MaryJo Rossetti
Cc: Mayor; Katjana Ballantyne; Board of Aldermen; John Long; DPW; Fire
Subject: Snow removal follow-up: HELP!
Hi Mary Jo,
Thanks for being one of the few to actually respond to my last plea (you & Dennis Sullivan were the only ones).
The situation on the streets over behind Tufts is appalling. It’s reassuring to see the snow clearing happening in other parts of the city, but in our neck of the woods, we have now had 4 blizzards, and practically zero priority on the snow removal list.
I would invite you, the other alderman, and the Mayor to take the following short trip around town.
Start at the Davis square rotary and drive down Powderhouse Blvd towards Rt. 16.
Turn right on North.
Turn right on Raymond.
Turn left onto Curtis.
Turn left onto Conwell.
Turn right onto Hillsdale.
Turn left onto Chetwynd (good luck).
Turn right onto W. Adams.
Turn left onto Bailey St.
Turn left back onto North, and right onto High St.
Take High street down to the bottom, and attempt to make a right-hand turn onto Rt. 16.
The entire trip will only take you about 10-15 minutes, and will be far more enlightening than anything I could possibly write. Please do this in a passenger car, not a truck or SUV, for the full experience.
You’ll see dozens of still-snowed in cars, objects being used to save spaces (which at this point is a failure of snow removal, not the fault of the residents), partially plowed roads, enormous snow banks, barely passable streets, improperly cleared sidewalks, and dozens of hazardous situations, including having to blindly pull your car all the way onto Route 16 at an intersection where people run the red light multiple times a day.
And please, no excuses. This is NOT simply a manifestation of this year’s abundant snow - this is what it looks like every single year. For some reason, these neighborhoods just get completely neglected every winter. I’ve lived at this address since 2005, and the only year where it was acceptable was the year we didn’t get any snow.
I do plan on attending the snow policy meeting on February 25th, because I don’t feel based on physical evidence that anyone in the city is paying attention to, or properly representing what we’re dealing with over here.
In the meantime, can somebody PLEASE send some of the equipment over to this part of town to help us out?
Thanks,
Rob Cheyne