Over the weekend, a snowstorm deposited roughly 2 billion cubic feet of light, fluffy snow over the City of Boston.
"More than 2500 tons of snow have been removed from roadways, crosswalks, & ramps across Boston," Mayor Wu posted on Wednesday.
But if you're spent any time walking around the city this week, you've undoubtedly noticed that the city's idea of "removing" snow frequently involves plowing massive piles of it onto sidewalks and crosswalks.
StreetsblogMASS visited neighborhood business districts in Allston, Kenmore Square, and East Boston yesterday to see how passable their sidewalks were, three days after the snow stopped falling. Here's what we found.
Allston: blocked crosswalks, patchy sidewalks
Along Brighton Avenue and Harvard Avenue in the center of Allston's business district, the sidewalks were a very mixed bag.
Some businesses – like Brighton Music Hall – had meticulously cleared the entire sidewalk in front of their properties, from the storefront to the curb line:
But other businesses were less considerate, like the Baby Cafe on the other side of Harvard Avenue, which had apparently moved the snow from its parking lot into the city's sidewalk:
As we saw in other neighborhoods, crosswalks and intersections were some of the biggest challenges to navigating the neighborhood.
Most of the city's sidewalk curb ramps still seem to be buried under deep snowbanks, rendering the city impossible to navigate for people with wheelchairs and strollers.
At the corner of Brighton and Harvard Avenues – a busy pedestrian crossing – the sidewalks and sidewalk ramps had been cleared, then subsequently filled with a deep slush pile.
Meanwhile, the median in the middle of the street was still buried under a deep snowbank. Some pedestrians were trudging carefully over the top of the snow pile,, but others were making detours through the middle of the busy intersection.
Kenmore Square: wide, clear sidewalks
From Allston, we hopped on a 57 bus to Kenmore Square, where the wide sidewalks of Commonwealth Avenue were generally clear of all snow and ice (although there were still large snow piles blocking many of the neighborhood's crosswalk ramps):
Ironically, some of the messiest sidewalks in Kenmore Square were the ones that lead to the MBTA's bus depot and subway entrance in the center of the square:
Orient Heights
Next, I took the Blue Line to Orient Heights in East Boston. Leaving the Blue Line station, I noticed that Bluebikes had shoveled out the bikesharing dock that's next to the station on Bennington Street:
But just beyond the Bluebikes station, a traffic island at the intersection of Bennington and Saratoga Streets – the primary point of access between the Orient Heights T station and the surrounding neighborhood – was a mess of trampled, slushy snow. Pedestrians heading to and from the adjacent Blue Line station were gingerly stepping through the slush in single-file:
Once I'd cleared that obstacle, though, I found that most of the businesses on Saratoga Street and Bennington Street had carefully cleared their sidewalks, and on those main streets, it was generally easy to get around on foot.
But, as we saw on Brighton Avenue, several of median islands in the middle of the street (and in the City of Boston's responsibility) were generally impassable:
Submitting sidewalk snow complaints to Boston 311
StreetsblogMASS has submitted four cases based on some of the problem areas we discussed in this article. We'll follow up in a few days to see if the city takes any action.
