It snowed today.... a lot. Holy crap that's a ton of heavy snow.
O.k., let's start off by dishing out the praise where it belongs. Trash collectors and USPS workers work through the inclement weather and have to tramp through the foot high snow to keep aspects of our lives operating as if nothing were going on. There's also something to be said to those civic minded folk that shovel out before required to. I went out to shovel and found myself in good company. I saw 3 people in nearby shoveling their walkways and several others had already shoveled out.
Praise provided where due, now it's rant time.
Let's start with those who shovel into the street. I get it if you don't have a front yard, but there are many who don't have an excuse. Shoveling into the street isn't just illegal, it's stupid and unneighborly. Why is it stupid and unneighborly? You may not think about it, but where does the snow go once you've shoveled it into the street.... that's right, it gets pushed by plows into peoples' driveways and curb cuts.
Very similar to shoveling into the street is not shoveling out your curb cut. Yes, it's great that you shoveled your side walk, but how are people supposed to get to it if you didn't shovel out the curb cut? I know the plow will probably come and load some more snow in the way, but at least reduce the amount of snow people have to crawl through to get to your pristine sidewalk. I like to shovel out to the street on either end of my side walk. That way if my neighbor hasn't shoveled out yet, or the next person down the way doesn't, there's an outlet to the street anyway.
O.k., two pet peeves down, what's next? I know, how about neighbors who shovel out their driveway INTO YOUR SIDEWALK. You know what? If you shovel your snow onto someone else's area to shovel, you.... are.... a.... jerk. Period. No, really, I don't care if you don't think you have somewhere else to put it, I don't care if you're using a snow blower and it's just easier, that's it, you're a jerk and there's absolutely nothing that you can say to suggest otherwise. Yes, I have a neighbor who does this EVERYTIME it snows.... and often they do it without shoveling their sidewalk, which is just inspired.
Now, before I wrap this up with a final anger based on my experience today, let me say that Somerville does an amazing job of plowing. I hear about various cities and towns where the streets are not plowed to the pavement. I drive through some of it. While the last storm heaped more praise on Somerville's plowing than I thought it deserved (side streets had over an inch of snow on them and people were proclaiming "down to the pavement"), they typically do a pretty damn good job. That being said, I typically have to shovel a couple feet to make my corner curb cut accessible to those crossing the street. Today was even worse. Today I shoveled out my car, I shoveled out my side walk, I shoveled about 2 feet into the street to get from the curb cut to the open pavement.... and then I had to shovel 6 feet from the edge of the sidewalk in front of my driveway, into the street, to reach where the street had been plowed. In the time it took for me to shovel those 6 feet of street, plows came by 6 times to plow the other side of the street and 1 time coming the opposite direction (the one time coming back the opposite direction, it didn't push the snow toward the sidewalk). Again, Somerville does a great job, I just wish they could plow ever so slightly closer to the curb on my side of the street... throwing the snow some 8-10 feet is hard on my back.
O.k., that's it, that's my rant for the day, hope you have been entertained :-)
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