In our suburban area of Kansas City they just added bus service a few years ago but only in the last couple of years has it really caught on where lots of people are riding the bus to work. Before that it was all cars.
However that has brought another issue - clearing sidewalks of snow. We dont get too much snow but when it does I notice the snow plows push it into piles at corners where people try to cross the street, plus sidewalks are not cleared.
As a homeowner we are technically required to shovel the sidewalks in front of our homes. One big problem is when the snowplows come through they put a huge pile of snow at the base of your driveway. That often will melt and harden and you got this huge berm of ice that can bottom out a car.
So I’d like to ask you all that live in areas with alot of snow AND either walk or take public transportation:
Do they clear the sidewalks of snow? If so who does it the business/homeowners or does the city do it?
Are street corners kept clear so that when you cross a street you dont have to climb over a mound of snow at the corner?
The homeowner or business is required to clear their property, including the sidewalk, driveway and walk of snow and ice. I’m sure there are cities that do it for you, but I’d guess that they’re upper class neighborhoods with the property taxes to cover something that expensive. That seems like the exception. We have to do it within either 24 or 48 hours of the snow stopping, it would take a lot of manpower for a city to get that done with. It would also put the liability on them for accidents.
2)I’m not sure about what you’re asking. If the snow is on the street, the homeowner would only have to clear the actual sidewalk. Once they hit street, their job is done. In my city (a small suburb of Milwaukee) if the snow has been so bad that people have to climb over snow banks to get into the road, they do come out with equipment large and small equipment to help deal with it. They’ll bring out pick up trucks, front end loaders, back hoes and dump trucks to deal with the narrowing roads and help us with get our driveways back when we’re sitting there with nowhere left to put the snow.
One of other thing we have to do is clear hydrants. Regardless of how much snow we got or what the plows did to it, if you have a hydrant, you have to go make sure there’s a nice clear radius around it.
I think these are the answers you’re going to get from most of us in Northern states. I’m not sure how much snow you get in KA, but up here, getting 6 inches in one snowfall is pretty typical and it happens often enough that it’s annoying but not really a big deal. Most of us have snowblowers, we all have shovels and clothing for going out and doing this. And we all keep our ice scraper in the car year round, never know which day your going to walk out of work to find your windshield iced over.
The Property owner is required to clear it within 24 hours. If you leave it a second day you will receive a note on the door from code enforcement that if it is there the next day they will remove it at ridiculous expense. I’m pretty sure it is not a bluff, but I don’t know anyone who has left it to find out.
All our corners have been updated with ramps to street, and they must be cleared, same rules as 1.
Busses? What is this word? Is it English? Seriously I have never seen one that wasn’t much warmer than standing on the street waiting for it. Some leak badly though.
No, street corners are not kept clear. The snow from the street is often pushed into the corners, forcing pedestrians to blaze a path through the drifts. It is very annoying, but fortunately we don’t get a whole lot of snow here.
But buses don’t typically stop on corners. They usually stop more or less in the middle of the block. And usually the drivers will stop quite a distance from the mounds of snow, so that when passengers have clear ground to step out onto.
Yes, the buses are warm. Usually too warm, since everyone is bundled up.
Minneapolis is pretty similar to the other northern cities that have been brought up.
Property owners have to clear sidewalks. Single family homes have 24 hours after the snowfall stops, everyone else has four hours.
At street corners and bus stops, the property owner is responsible up to the street gutter. City crews will eventually come out and remove snow piled in the actual street, but this takes a while.
Buses and trains are heated pretty much like private cars. Buses can get a little chilly temporarily if there’s a lot of people getting on at one stop and the door stays open for a long time, but usually they’re like monstro says: too warm for all the winter clothes you’re wearing. The trains used to be chillier, since all the doors opened for 20 seconds or so at every station regardless of if anyone was using them or not, but they reprogrammed them last winter to require a button press to open if the temperature was below a certain point. (Or above a certain point in the summer.)
I lived in St. Louis for 20 years, so climatically all but identical to Kansas City. And I lived both urban and suburban.
Pretty much what the others said.
You’re required to clear your own walks. Street plowing leaves a berm at intersections and at your driveway. You’re expected to clear that off if you own the corner. You can minimize that effect by clearing an area in the street just upstream of your driveway. That way the plow offloads its backlog into that space and is empty as it passes your driveway.
Busses & trains are overheated, but it’ll be chilly if you get stuck right next to the door.
I lived in or around NYC for 25 years. One of the few things I don’t miss is being a pedestrian in a cold, windy winter, negotiating over mountains of frozen snow . . . only to land in a foot-deep lake of slush.
Yes, people are required to clear snow in a timely manner. Pretty much everyone does.
Sometimes there are problem spots on waking routes (my least favorite are ice patches and huge puddles of slush). You just power through it. On snowy days, I’m wearing snow boots, leg warmers, wool socks and a long coat, so I can handle quite a bit.
The busses and trains are warm. Waiting outside can be miserable thought.
Suburban Chicago here. We are responsible for pretty much nothing. The village clears the snow from the sidewalks and street corners, although many people will shovel a little path to help people before the weird snow-clearing monstrosity machine comes through. The village isn’t particularly wealthy, but it is small enough that one person can clear all the sidewalks in one day.
Montreal clears all sidewalks–even in the poor neighborhoods. Aside from the direct cost, there are others. Sidewalks tend to be narrow and totally lack verges. Parking meters are as far as possible from the street. Sometimes, my sidewalk is not cleared for two or three days. When they finally plow the streets and sidewalks they often fill the end of my driveway. In my little town, the town owns the first ten feet of “my” property and blow snow onto it. Usually it does not all melt till May (we average 100" a year of snow and it is not till April that we can expect the typical day to go above freezing).
Until the sidewalks are cleaned, it can be hard to get on/off a bus. It can be hard to cross a street because there is often a pile of snow/slush at a corner. When I walk down my lightly trafficked street, I can walk in the street which always gets one track cleared early.
Buses and trains are very well heated. Never any problem there.
Forgot to add: The Metro is a sealed system and the cars use rubber tires, which generate heat. As a result neither the trains nor the stations require any heating.
??? I’m not making any sense of this. By cars do you mean automobiles or rail cars (or something else)? How do rubber tires generate heat in these conditions (I know how they do it on dry pavement)? How does heat from tires have any affect on heating trains or heating stations?
It’s not uncommon for charitable organizations and/or churches to have lists of people who need help with snow shovel or other yard work and lists of people willing to volunteer to help out those who need it.
Where those resources don’t exist, it’s up the home owner to get it figured out one way or another.
The Montreal metro trains are not conventional railways. They are rubber-tired vehicles that travel in underground tunnels. Akin to the people-mover systems you see at some airports & Disneyworld type places.
**Hari **is saying that the tires flex enough that they generate enough heat to keep the underground stations warm. I’m a bit dubious, but I could image the total waste heat from the electric drive motors, lighting, tires, etc., could keep an underground station at least above freezing.