fb-pixelTaking measure of walk to school after the blizzard - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Taking measure of walk to school after the blizzard

Cormac and Clara Ryan took an investigative walk with their reporter father to test conditions after the blizzard of 2015 struck, and schools were shut down for a third day. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff/Globe staff

The boy measured exactly 4 feet from the sole of his soggy boots to the tip of the red cap knit by his mother. The snow pile that choked the crosswalk on East Fourth Street in South Boston rose 6 feet 1 inch.

The math was indisputable: Snow dwarfed boy.

It was a problem because the boy, an irrepressible kindergartner named Cormac, must cross that street to make it to Condon Elementary.

Cormac dutifully followed his older sister, a first-grader named Clara who faced the same math problem. The purple pompom atop Clara’s hat bobbed 52 inches above the ground, far shorter than the 72-inch snow giants obscuring pedestrians from approaching cars.

Advertisement



As their father, I measure the world in Claras and Cormacs. The tally has included birthdays (Clara 7, Cormac 4); lost teeth (Clara 8, Cormac 0); and the number of consecutive days this week with no school (Clara 3, Cormac 3).

It seemed only right to use my kids as measuring sticks to test Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s decision to cancel classes for Boston’s 57,000 public school students through Thursday. As the city continued digging out from this week’s blizzard, Walsh had announced a third snow day was needed because he had “grave concerns about the status of our sidewalks and the well-being of students walking to and from their bus stops.”

Could sidewalks really be that treacherous? It was only snow. And after all, this is New England. Would Buffalo cancel three days of class?

On Thursday morning, I stuffed my children into puffy coats, pulled on their boots, and made them wear their backpacks for the six-block walk from our house to Condon Elementary, all in the name of watchdog journalism. They needed exercise anyway. I couldn’t face another round of the board game Sorry.

My kids are two of Boston’s roughly 24,000 “walkers” — students who live close to their school. About 33,000 other students take yellow buses or public transportation.

Advertisement



The journey from our house to Condon Elementary felt like a walk on the flat section of a luge track. My children clomped between white walls of snow that had been carved by shovels. The path narrowed at points to less than a foot, but most sidewalks were passable.

One exception: a stretch of sidewalk in front of town houses at 333 and 327 W. Fourth Street. The driveway and off-street parking had been neatly plowed, but the sidewalk remained snow-choked.

Cormac ventured into the street. After nearly four years of Irish dance instruction, Clara tried to high-kick through hip-high snow. She fell face first after a few steps.

“Can I change my pants when I get home?” Clara asked, snow clinging to her nose. “If we walked to school, I would be going to school with wet pants.”

The problem, in most spots, was not the sidewalks. It was the seven intersections the kids needed to cross between home and school — intersections the city is responsible for clearing.

Sidewalks dead-ended at corners blocked by mountains of snow. Crosswalks had disappeared. Berms topped seven feet, nearly two full Cormacs. At one intersection, snow extended 11 feet out from both curbs, devouring most of E Street.

Cormac followed his sister through a narrow breach in one snow bank, the opening several feet away from the intersection. He found himself standing on West Fourth Street, far from the crosswalk. Cormac needed to dash through the middle of the intersection, running past another seven-foot-high mound. He needed to find a cut in the opposite snow bank to make it back to the sidewalk.

Advertisement



But Cormac is not supposed to be in the street. He inched back up against the snow bank and refused to move.

Cormac was scared, he said, because “a lot of cars were coming.” There was one sedan nearly a half block down. But Cormac is 4 years old. At 48 inches, the red tip of his hat barely reaches the side-view mirror on some cars.

We made it to the Condon, where the clear, gray sidewalks shined in the sun. After a long trudge home, Cormac lay lazily on his back in our kitchen. He and Clara faced another afternoon with no school.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Cormac whined. “What do I do?”

Friday, he will have something to do: Boston public schools are scheduled to resume classes.


Andrew Ryan can be reached at andrew.ryan@globe.com.