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“I think we have made a huge amount of headway with this most recent blizzard in getting everything back up and running in Boston,” Mayor Michelle Wu said.
Do Boston’s streets seem clearer than they did after the last big storm? It could be the city’s new-and-improved approach to snow removal, according to Mayor Michelle Wu.
Appearing on WBUR’s “Morning Edition” Wednesday, Wu explained the city made some key tweaks following last month’s storm, which dumped nearly two feet of snow on Boston. The changes come after city officials faced an onslaught of complaints about Boston’s cleanup efforts, which left snowbanks lingering in bike lanes, blocking sidewalks, and generally wreaking havoc on those with strollers or mobility aids.
Following Monday’s blizzard, however, Wu extended the city’s parking ban for almost an extra day to give officials more time to remove snow before the cars returned.
“This is the first time that we tried it this way, because we know it’s a burden for residents to not be able to put their cars where they usually have them, often closer to their homes,” she explained.
Snow removal — the process of hauling snow away to “snow farms” for melting — is more disruptive to traffic than regular plowing and typically only happens overnight, according to Wu.
But by extending the parking ban, the city could work on snow removal during the day. According to The Boston Globe, the city was ultimately able to haul away 200 truckloads of snow on Tuesday alone.
“That extra eight hours gave us a real head start on what we will need to do and continue to do overnight the next couple nights,” Wu said.
She said the city is also exploring new ways to target property owners who don’t clear their sidewalks following a storm. While Boston already has a system of fines in place for late shoveling, Wu said her office is looking into a program that would charge property owners an additional fee if city workers are called in to clear snowy sidewalks.
According to Wu, that program would be targeted at certain “priority” sidewalk areas — near schools, senior centers, or major thoroughfares, for example. Clear sidewalks were already top-of-mind for Wu this week; following Monday’s storm, Boston encouraged volunteer neighborhood shoveling meet-ups across 16 different neighborhoods, to mixed results.
“I think we have made a huge amount of headway with this most recent blizzard in getting everything back up and running in Boston,” she said Wednesday on WBUR. “But with 40 inches already on the ground before the blizzard, another almost two feet that came down, and more to come, we are going to be making the most of our New England winter city status for a couple more weeks.”
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