I know I pointed this out the other day, but it warrants a follow up. As I mentioned previously, most of the side streets in Boston (particularly in the Allston/Brighton area) were completely unplowed, unsanded, unsalted, and generally left untouched by city workers during this past ice/snow storm last week. How this happens, I am not sure. Did the city just not feel like plowing? Did they think that the slushy combo didn’t warrant the effort? Did no one at the DPW realize what was going to happen when a slush/ice storm is followed by a week of single digit temperatures, and streets go unplowed?

As a result of this complete negligence, the side streets here are complete chaos. The roads are treacherously narrow (more narrow than usual) with solid ice down the middle and slim sets of clear spots for tires on either side of said ice. And then there is the parking situation. Not only have 30% of the available street parking spots disappeared as a result of the snow and ice, but the lack of plowing and salting has created 6 inch ridges of ice that lock the parallel parked cars into place along the curb. To get out (if you can), you need to free your wheels from the ice, and then try and smash over a solid cement-like ridge to get into the road. Given the low ground clearance of most cars, this proves to be an extraordinarily difficult task, and many cars end up half in their spot and half in the street, spinning wheels suspended above the nearest patch of pavement. And again, that’s if you can even get out. Walking around the streets here, it is a chorus of spinning wheels, as dozens of cars helplessly try to extricate themselves. I personally helped to push two cars out yesterday, and gave up on another which has sat stuck in place since the 14th (4 days), unable to get over the ice wall that holds it in place.

Even with my all-wheel drive, things have been dangerous around here. Every time I come and go from my apartment, it is a white knuckle adventure, and my car and those cars around me are at risk.

The City of Boston and those plow contractors that were out on the night of the storm (which literally were riding around with their plows up during the height of the storm) should be ashamed of themselves, and at the very least, there should be some free tow services offered to the legions of stuck people that are only stuck because of the city’s lack of street clearing.