It’s Snow Fun II
Rodger Digilio
alexandrianews.org
The great snow came last weekend as predicted and Alexandria responded. In my column of last Sunday I made some observations on our city’s snow removal efforts for the big storm in December. Let’s see how the City handled this one.
First the City nailed King Street pedestrian crossings. When the usual snow shoveling crew appeared on Saturday afternoon to clear the handicapped ramps it looked like business as usual. Sunday afternoon, however, a pair of skid loaders worked their way up King Street clearing the intersections for easy pedestrian passage. The result was amazing. The city gets a big “hats off” for this effort. It probably was more economic, as well, as a supervisor and two skid loader operators did more and better work than a supervisor with a five-man shovel crew.
Second the City seemed to do a better job of getting into the neighborhood streets quicker for plowing. They did not waste time on school and other parking lots that were not needed anyway. They seemed to deploy their plows more efficiently. Even though many neighborhood streets were not clear they were passable for citizens and emergency equipment driving carefully.
After these kudos it is time for the brickbats. Major streets in old town were not cleared leaving up to 4 inches of packed snow and ice on the roads. It was still present Tuesday afternoon as the next storm began. Cars were spinning out of control at the intersection of King and Henry Streets tying up traffic. The same was true on Duke Street as drivers attempted to turn at Holland Lane. No so on Mount Vernon Avenue which was down to bare pavement by Monday morning, at least in Del Ray if not in Arlandia. This was not really a snow plow problem because the compacted snow and ice was not really plowable. Rather the city seemed to run out of salt because that was what was needed to melt it. While it is nice to have bare pavement on Mt. Vernon Avenue and on Beauregard, it certainly is essential to have it on route 1, 7 and 236 which are main traffic routes.
For the sidewalks, except for the King Street intersections, the conditions elsewhere were exactly the same as December. City crews plowed the crosswalks and bus stops closed. One business owner in Del Ray walked 3 miles to her office building on Sunday morning and with the assistance of a couple of young men cleared a path along the sidewalk and opened up pedestrian access to the intersection and the bus stop on her corner of Mt. Vernon Ave. That evening a city crew came and plowed out the bus stop so the bus could partially pull off the roadway. They sealed the stop off from the bus riders and piled the snow at the corner sealing off the intersection. The heavy chunks of snow and ice could not be removed on Monday…so much for the efforts of citizens to help pedestrians and bus riders.
The city has also continued to violate its own ordinance on clearing snow from sidewalks. One of the worst sidewalks on King Street was right in front of Market Square. It was a thick sheet of ice and, of course, the city never attempted to clear the sidewalk in front of their little park at King, Fayette and Commerce.
I have commented before on the crisis of enforcement that is gripping local government. Council members always solve problems by passing ordinances. In our increasingly complex society with increasing rules and regulations there are simply not enough resources to insure they are being followed. Now it is clear that the City is not even following them themselves; hardly a situation that builds confidence among the citizens or provides credibility to claims about how well we are governed.
The city needs to rethink snow removal and develop a simple and clear plan that can be easily accessed by whoever is in charge when the big snows come. The city must stop working against property owners, pedestrians and mass transit riders. It is one thing to do nothing. It is quite another to make matters worse. Let’s think things through. When a bus stop is plowed out for the bus the riders must wait in the street. That is dangerous and the driver can’t pull out of the through traffic lane or he will hit his passengers. The bus sits in the travel lane anyway so what has really been accomplished?
Perhaps we should turn enforcement of the sidewalk clearing ordinance over to Dana Lawhorne, our Sheriff. He has organized a work detail of trusted jail inmates. Given some equipment, they could clear the sidewalks that the owners (and the city) fail to do and bill for their efforts at a good rate. Inmates could make money, the Sheriff’s office could make money and pedestrians could feel safe.
I walked into a shop on King Street on Monday evening and chatted with the owner and a young woman customer. She was trapped in the city because of cancelled flights. We had a lovely talk and I asked her how she felt we were coping with the snow. She smiled and said: “I’m from Boston.” “We deal with snow a lot differently there.”
Perhaps this next storm which is now upon us will give us more practice. Perhaps after few more years we can deal with snow differently here, too.