Globe's Edgers Opens up Dialogue on Snowy Sidewalks

Posted by John B. Kelly

Boston Globe arts reporter (and access advocate) Geoff Edgers's Boston.com blog, "Exhibitionist," is devoted to the arts, but that didn't stop him from posting the above picture of me squeezed between a car and a hard slush at the corner of Westland Avenue and Hemenway Street.

I had sent Geoff and a bunch of other people an e-mail invitation to view 35 pictures of access violations in the Fenway, but until the the picture hit Boston.com, it had received a total of 59 views. After the exposure, views went over 3000.

People responded so enthusiastically to his posting that 16 comments came in within hours, that he put up another posting about this representing the most feedback he had ever gotten on a blog item.

The comments make great reading, in large part because people are remarkably honest. One fellow, Ben, asks the big question:

what should we expect people to do about this? It is nearly impossible to have all of the snow and ice cleared from the sidewalks and roadways the day or two after a big storm. Our New England meteorological/Climate conditions and available human resources just do not allow for it. We should feel bad that this situation creates significant impairments to handicap access around the city, but realistically what can be done about it? Please make some feasible suggestions as to what accomodations should be made.

The answer is to change from doing what doesn't work to what might work. Bill Allan of the disability policy consortium suggests hiring people to shovel, and I think that is the right direction. Let's make it neighborhood-based, and have competitions between the neighborhoods on which can be the safest after a snowstorm. The group that could provide the most leadership would be teenagers, junior high and high school students. They could have competitions against each other, they could document violations, and be empowered to turn in evidence against violators. They would have a list of elderly and disabled people whose homes should be shoveled out as a public service.

All that is needed is the political will.

But I ran into the reality that he describes today, when Patty Provenzano, DCR director of community relations, told me that not only would it be impossible to clear the snow in my or any neighborhood within the three hour limit set by the city, but that DCR isn't even bound to by city regulations. I asked her, "are you sure?" She said she was. I'm thinking that we will certainly have to see about that!

I called inspectional services, and got the "hold on," followed 25 seconds later by the sudden cut off. It's amazing how many times I get "accidentally" cut off when I am making a complaint about being excluded from the streets of the city. Why just the other day, I got accidentally cut off talking to the DCR official who argued that DCR had 24 hours to clear its sidewalks, that "roads are priority one; everything else comes after."

Who knows, maybe they do have their own rules.