It’s part of a slow creep of decreasing services because people don’t like paying taxes. There used to be city-owned sidewalk plows, I gather, well before I moved here in 1996, but it was one of many services eliminated when the town needed to save money at some point. It’s apparently one of the many fallouts from Proposition 2.5. Others include now only having a single 9-5 M-F animal control officer, the elimination of two fire stations, elimination of one branch library and countless other little things I don’t know about.
I would LOVE to have the city plow the walks. There are lots of other things I’d love to have done, and I’d be willing to pay more in taxes to get them, but that would take overturning Proposition 2.5 and you know how popular raising taxes is.
The sidewalk in front of my house: I shovel it. I’m the only one who ever would. The town doesn’t do it.
I’m not getting hung up on who owns what, who is responsible for what; I want it done, so I do it. I walk my dog in the morning, and wish everyone would just shovel the goddamn sidewalk. Rent an apartment if (one) dosen’t want to get (one’s) hands dirty.
(and by the way, when the snow and ice thaws from (one’s) sidewalk, and dog turds seem to materialize only in places where snow wasn’t previously cleared…? Oh yeah, that’s my pup.) I pick it up everywhere else. If my neighbors don’t want to shovel their snow, that’s cool; they may just be picking up my dog’s crap instead., when the snow thaws.
Honestly it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. In central VA, shoveling a sidewalk isn’t any more ardous of a chore than, say, mowing one’s grass every two weeks. The sidewalk doesn’t belong to me, but I regularly weed-wack the cracks and keep the grass on the side trimmed like I’m supposed to. It’s not that burdensome.
Here, the houses here are real close to together so there’s not a whole lot of sidewalk for anyone homeowner to clear. If your house does have a lot of sidewalk, you can likely can easily afford a snow blower or a couple of kids with shovels.
It snows so sparcely that it seems like a giant waste for the city to invest in a crew and equipment to shovel all the sidewalks in the city, in addition to the other duties they need to do. If we got a lot more snow, I’d agree with you that the city should handle it.
Meanwhile, your “elected representatives” and their minion bureaucrats keep seeing raises in pay and perks that the mere lowly taxpayers footing the bill can’t afford.
I strongly suspect that if government demonstrated better stewardship of what they’re already getting instead of “our pay and perks first, then we’ll throw the public the crumbs and punish them for not giving us more by cutting what they NEED”, tax increases would be less unpopular.
Out of curiosity, assuming such rules were enforced, what are your responsibilities if you’re not home right after a snow storm? If you go to Hawaii for a month in December?
If you aren’t available to shovel your sidewalk, you need to make arrangements for someone to do it for you. If you’re leaving for any length of time, you’d probably be making arrangements for plants getting watered, mail taken in, grass mowed, sidewalk shovelled, all that stuff (not grass and snow in the same season, mind you). I have a feeling some people don’t do that (mail piled up and walk unshovelled all winter long) - if I were someone looking to break into a house, those would be my first choices.
I’m warming up my boots, because there’s 12" of snow getting dumped on us, starting at midnight.
And we’ve got a narrow driveway, sandwiched between the house and a fence. I’m wondering where I can put it all (with my manual shovel), and hoping my sixty-something rotator cuffs can handle it.
But, dammit, I’m going to clear that sidewalk a couple of times on Sunday, just for you.
Bright spot: that should be it til after Xmas. So my mom should be able to make it to our house (over the river and through a sort-of woods) on the 25th.
I hate to ruin your idyllic image and probably blow your mind in the process, but we have to make the repairs and maintain the sidewalk and even replace it if it gets too bad. We also have to take care of the trees in the boulevard (well, I don’t anymore since I had them all cut down). And mow and trim it too.
Our situation here is more like CanvasShoes’ description. The only responsibilities that are transferred to abutters are clearing snow/ice and repaving IF the repaving has to be done due to work the abutter needed - so if you have to replace your sewer connection, or want to run a new gas line, and the sidewalk gets taken up to do that work you have to get it repaved yourself, but you have to use one of the city-approved re-pavers. If the city needs to tear up the sidewalk they repair it themselves. Usually poorly. Apparently their work does not need to be up to the same standards abutters are held to.
I’m genuinely curious. Why would anyone need the sidewalks so much if its got so much snow on it that you can’t walk? Why aren’t those people driving or staying inside? I hear people walking their dogs and such when there’s snow but wouldn’t that be like going for a walk during a hurricane?
Because we need to get to work, or the grocery store, or the dentist, or school. Between my front door and the subway station there is 1/2 mile of sidewalk. I and hundreds of other people need to walk on it. If I walk in the street I will get run over. I’m not talking about a blizzard - we will actually stay inside 'til that’s over. But once the snow stops falling, be it 1" or 30" we need to get it cleared so people can get where they need to be. Life can’t stop until it melts on its own.
