The snow had finally stopped. For more than a day, a fleet of 678 plows and diggers had churned across Boston chasing the February blizzard, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill.
But then, all at once, almost all the plows went silent.
To continue getting breaking news and the full stories from The Boston Globe, subscribe today.
The snow had finally stopped. For more than a day, a fleet of 678 plows and diggers had churned across Boston chasing the February blizzard, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill.
But then, all at once, almost all the plows went silent.
Comments
Sounds to me like this isn't a job for private contractors. With global warming, snowfall is too unpredictable to expect contractors to survive from year to year. The city needs to invest in the equipment and then hire drivers as needed. And obviously get better GPS. This problem is only going to get worse as global warming makes snowstorms scarce, but also makes them with much deeper snow when they do come.
Interesting that articles like this never mention how rigged the subcontracting system is with snowplowing. This is an incredibly quick cash haul for these contractors, and they keep their drivers on the road as long as possible, going over the same road again and again because they're being paid by the hour. This repeated gnashing of heavy shovels on the already clean roads destroys them and is a big reason for the bashed up roads at the end of the snow season. To see all this neanderthal 'engineering' going on, unnecessarily costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year, is both humorous and depressing.
Once again, if Boston would look at more intelligent and civilized cities like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, or Oslo, they'll notice a very different--and far more economical--means of keeping roads cleared during the winter.
Renaldo- three of the four cities you cite as having a "far more economical means of keeping roads clear in winter" --Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Copenhagen -- rarely have snowstorms like we have, so of course they are more economical. Look it up. They are warmer in winter than Boston, too. The best snow removal operation in the world is in San Juan.
This is not a question of who owns the equipment, the issue lies squarely on the lack of proper planning and execution on the part of the city. My neighborhood gets a mix of city and private plows at times during the same storm, they all do a poor job. Certain areas of the city could make do with removal techniquies used in cities such as Montreal. In particular streets where cars are already off the road when snow emergencies are declared. One simple approach may be to keep the same crew assigned to a sector so that it is easily monitored for removal.
"Streets where cars are already off the road when snow emergencies are declared?" Really? Boston? You must be joking. We park wherever we want, whenever we want around here. Except if you park your car in MY space, expect 4 flat tires! This ain't Montreal or Copenhagen.
Spoken like a man, NativeBos, who has never plowed snow or planned anything bigger than a birthday party. The response, response time, and effectivness is different for each storm because each storm is different, and the technology, with the exception of the GPS monitoring of trucks (which doesn't plow any snow) hasn't improved much in 40 years.
Interesting article. The states and cities that do maintain their own snowplow crews have to find suitable work for that large number of workers in the off-season. So, the sub-contractor model should be modified to work in Boston. A good friend has the proper license and a medical card to drive Over The Road rigs, buthe could make buckets of money driving plows for a subcontractor of the city. His problem is being able to take time off from his "real job" to snowplow. He told me this is a serious time commitment and he's tired for days after working a storm. I hope Boston really studies this problem because there is no money to maintain more city snow plow drivers or rigs.
The article seems to imply the opposite, that subcontractors are going out of business because of off years without snowstorms and that the process needs to be run directly by the City of Boston to be viable and effective.
Now that weather reports are so accurate that they can foretell the magnitude of the storm before it actually strikes, it makes sense to suggest that drivers find a way to get their cars off the road. That may cost them. Before a big storm, I move my car to a nearby motel's parking garage for 24 hours. The cost is $18.00. If you can't do that, then I don't know what the answer is if you want your side street plowed and cleared by the next day
In response to JPL, who threatned to flatten four tires of the intruder on his adopted parking spot he had shovled out, I say one good deed deserves another. Once the driver of the vandalized car finds out the person who thinks he owns this spot could look forward to his tires being slashed at a later, clandestine time. The vandal would have to be the person who parks there after he forced the inruder out. Guy (or gal), I understand the seeming injustice of it when someone parks in your painfully shovelled out spot, but the street is a public street, owned by the taxpayers at large. Sorry, you don't own a part of it.
Perhaps your Internet Software browsing program didn't pick up on PL's use of the sarcasm font.