[bscb-l] snow removal

[alice dampman Humel]

Actually, many cities and towns in many states have and successfully enforce ordinances that require people to shovel out their sidewalks.  I think the fines should be raised to much higher levels to "encourage" people to clear their sidewalks. Many cities and towns simply tack the fines onto the homeowner's tax bill. 
    The solution to the problem of disabled homeowners is called "exemption." They apply and are exempted from the ordinance. 
    How many homeowners and/or renters refuse to shovel their sidewalks, but are perfectly capable of shoveling out their precious cars, parking spots, and driveways and leave a 5 foot high mound of snow right smack in the middle of their unshoveled sidewalks making walkking on the sidewalk an impossibility? It may be possible to slog through an unshoveled sidewalk, but it is not possible to get past these mounds without going out into the street, and of course with all the snow, one has to go further out into the street than for a non-snow off-curb obstacle, thus endangering both person and dog, if there is a dog. 
    Technically, you are correct that the sidewalks are city property, and that the city is responsible for keeping them in good repair (and they can't even manage to do *that* much of the time). But as a homeowner, one has responsibilities that transcend the tecchnicalities, and it would not be possible for a city or town to clear all the residential sidewalks. 
    Of course, in a place like the former Soviet Union, the sidewalks in residential areas were indeed cleared by government crews, but I can hearr the conservatives screaming "socialism" all the way from here. Additionally, European urban landscapes are quite different from American ones. Very few people own one-family homes inn the cities or what we call suburbs, and there are more apartment buildings, so that social structure is different as well. 
    There are many solutions to this problem, but I doubt the current American social, political or economic climate would embrace any of them. 
    I do agree about the snow plows, though, and they leave those insurmountable mounds on streets and at corners. And because those mounds are so enormous, they stay around for months. 
    There's another problem involved with snow that we might as well address...in for a penny, in for a pound. And that is the grossly extreme overuse of chemical melting compounds on the streets and sidewalks that turn them into vast oceans of caustic slush and muck. God, I'd rather deal with ice and snow than with that sludge. 
Alice 


alicedh at verizon.net
alicedh at verizon.net
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