Snow removal last night

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

I am going to catch a lot of flak for this, but I actually wanted to (gasp!) thank the City of Somerville for their relatively good work at clearing most of the roads last night.

I observed the roads in Somerville to be much clearer than the roads just across the border in Cambridge, in particular Mass Ave.

This isn't a knock on Cambridge, but from the warmth of my house, I was able to observe the DPW trucks making repeated rounds last evening keeping the roads open in case they were needed.

Comments

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I drove back from the airport this morning at 6am and came back the no-toll way. I can tell you that the Somerville streets were much, MUCH better than Revere and Everette (and possibly part of Chelsea).

[veek.livejournal.com]

What is this no-toll way of which you speak?

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

When you're leaving the airport, one of your options is to go Route 1A to Revere, and then you can loop around. No tunnels, no tolls.

If you use maps.google.com and put in your address as one end and this as the other:

Lee Burbank Hwy/RT-1A S @42.397477, -71.008388 to:Logan Airport Boston MA

it'll give you a rough idea of the route. I've never taken the route during high traffic periods, though.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

this is one possible way. (http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&q4=42.365996%2C-71.023179&q3=42.386167%2C-71.039304&q2=42.401341%2C-71.082918&q1=42.396143%2C-71.121843&trf=0&lon=-71.072874&lat=42.385303&mag=5)

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing 1A to 16? If there's no traffic, it's not too bad. Otherwise, pay the $3.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

All things considered, they should be better. Somerville has the highest population density of any city in New England. That means more local tax revenue for a fatter snow removal budget. I'm not ungrateful, mind you, but I don't feel that I should be surprised that Somerville had more money to spend on trucks and labor.

This whole post? IIRC.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that having a large residential base actually hurts your income. Commercial rates are higher for the same square footage.

I don't have it at my fingertips, but if you Google something like "Massachusetts City Tax Base" (some Google Foo will be required) you can get a table of what every city takes in for real estate taxes. There was an article in the Globe about it a few months ago, IIRC. Again, IIRC, Somerville was about in the middle of RE tax income.

Finally, I dunno if you read the Somerville News, but there was all kindsa complaining over there when the current mayor bought new DPW equipment recently, and (IIRC) it was for new snow removal trucks, among other things.

[ron_newman]

Cambridge has a MUCH higher property tax base than Somerville, because of all the commercial and industrial uses, especially around Kendall Square and Alewife.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

my street doesn't always get plowed, and doesn't always get plowed well, and this morning it was nice and clear, and in fact i didn't really hit a bad road getting to mass ave. it would've been nice if there had been some plowing yesterday afternoon when people were trying to get home, but i'm with you on thanking the somerville dpw for their evening efforts.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Well, it *is* kind of difficult to plow the roads when people are actually *on* them...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

I think that there is a limit at which the rate of snowfall exceeds the rate of removal, and you just have to wait for the DPW to catch up.

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Mass Ave. It was completely patchy and shaky there this morning. But, as soon as we crossed into Boston, the roads were as clear as day.

[ron_newman]

Mass. Ave, between Rindge Ave. and Day Street, looked fine to me when I walked there last night (around 8:30 pm to visit Pemberton Market)

[angelpiglet.livejournal.com]

Somerville was the best i've seen it
Cambridge was horrible, especially Cambridge St.
I was definitely surprised!
now hopefully they will be salted/sanded tonight!

I just realized...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

I should be using this icon from 2004 :)

That's a '99 Saturn SC1 under there.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

This has been consistently true for several years now. It boggles my mind to cross a town border and go from ICY DEATH to "gosh, the road is damp."

I think other towns in this area should take a page from somerville's book. Maybe scribble out the lines about how you only get two hours in the middle of the afternoon to move your car out of the school lots. There's costs associated with the commitment to snow removal, of course, but I wish Medford would do it anyway.

Cambridge v. Somerville

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words about the plowing.

In terms of population and budgets, Cambridge has about half again as many people as Somerville, and spends over twice as much per citizen.

In fact, Somerville raises and spends fewer tax dollars per capita than any city in Massachusetts with a population of 50,000 or more.

One of the big reasons we're so tightly managed is that we are far more dependent than Cambridge is on residential property taxes as opposed to commercial taxes. That's why residential rates are higher here than in Cambridge -- and why we've been working so hard on sustainable development plans for Assembly Square, Union Square and, indeed, the whole city.

As to tsuki_no_bara's comment about apparent performance improvements in this year's snow operations, one of the things we've been doing is investing in a few smaller plows so that we can get into some of those small, hard-to-reach corners without having to higher outside contractors whose performances can be -- how shall i put this -- variable. This is the first winter in which we're doing it all ourselves, and we hope it shows.

Re: Cambridge v. Somerville

[derekp.livejournal.com]

Well, good job! Pass the word along...

And can you maybe revisit that whole 2 hours to move your car when the snow emergency is lifted mid day thing?

Re: Cambridge v. Somerville

[ron_newman]

Glad to hear all of this. I was generally impressed with what I saw last night. But please, make sure that sidewalks next to municipal parking lots are plowed as well. Seems like every year, I've had to complain to Jack Connolly or Rebekah Gewirtz about Day Street in order to prod the city into action there.

Re: Cambridge v. Somerville

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Be still my heart! It's the famous Tom Champion posting in our humble online community.

It's an honor to have you here, sir. And allow me to compliment you on your lovely phone voice.


Got any fun inside tidbits for us Illuminations guides to use on our tours tomorrow night?

Re: Cambridge v. Somerville

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

my little side street was all cleared off this morning, so if that's because you bought smaller plows, it totally shows and they were an excellent investment. thank you. :>

Re: Cambridge v. Somerville

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

So, are you going to start posting snow alerts and other useful info to LJ? Because, of course, I had to friend you :).

[aki.livejournal.com]

There was a note (http://www.universalhub.com/node/11886) on Universal Hub (linking a Somerville blog? (http://blogs.townonline.com/somerville/?p=25421)) earlier today about Somerville verses Cambridge plowing, with a photo of the city line in Porter Square. That particular location is in front of a Lesley building on the Cambridge side and an empty/residental driveway on the Somerville side. Obviously, the Cambridge side was a bit better looking and Universal Hub concluded that Cambridge plowed better.

The real reason I bring this up is that they couldn't BE more wrong. I was so outraged on behalf of Somerville. One of the things I love best about Somerville is the presence of sidewalk plows, some Cambridge doesn't seem to have considered (based on my experiences in Central Square).

(I also had a terrible time on the sidewalks in Medford by Tufts today - neither Medford nor TUfts cleared EITHER SIDE of Boston Ave by the Tufts garage. It was awful.)

[ron_newman]

Can you do us all a favor in Somerville, and post this comment over at Universal Hub as well? A lot of folks read that blog.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

It is true, on thursday there were plows going up and down my little residential street over and over and over. It was very good -- a little too good perhaps, because then there was no excuse not to go to work the next day. Tufts is terrible at shoveling their sidewalks on Boston ave. I've made a tumble numerous times. You should call and complain -- maybe it will do something.