The Davis Square Community

Yes, I also don't get that. The last snow emergency that ended New Years Day they gave people a lot of extra time to move their cars, because obviously the school lots weren't going to be used on the holiday. There's no school on Sunday either, so...

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I'm actually annoyed that the police didn't drive up and down roads where people were getting towed, making announcements. It wasn't until I heard the car alarm go off that I noticed that the 1/2" of snow constituted an "emergency."

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somerville311.livejournal.com

Metered lots constitute only one group of "city" lots.

DPW crews are beginning work as soon as possible on SCHOOL lots, roadways, paths and steps to ensure that that they are as clear as possible prior to the reopening of school tomorrow.

Other non-metered city lots include the City Hall Concourse (93 Highland Ave.), the Central Library lot(79 Highland Ave.)and the West Branch Library (40 College Ave.)

In all lots, the best plan is to dig out and relocate as quickly as possible, but the lifting of snow emergency regulations means that normal parking rules are restored -- no more and no less.

The use of the word "may" in the sentence "Cars still parked in city lots at 1 p.m. on Sunday may be subject to ticketing and towing" is deliberate.

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ukelele.livejournal.com

Are you signed up for the phone or email alerts?

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'cause it's the policy?

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ron_newman

Thanks for your reply. The West Branch Library has a parking lot? I never knew this.

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ron_newman

By the way, I got a robo-call of silence from you, followed about five minutes later by another from the real Tom Champion.

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sapphira-altair.livejournal.com

They announce snow emergencies early on when a decent amount of snow is expected; they try to give people ample time to move their cars. Yesterday it went into effect at 3PM but they started giving notice at around 10:30AM; the city gave people until 7PM to move their cars. I think 8.5 hours is more than sufficient time to move your car. They provide notification of snow emergencies here in the DS community, on the Somerville website, AND you can sign up for both phone and e-mail alerts. I don't agree that wasting police effort on announcements for snow emergencies is necessary.

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prunesnprisms.livejournal.com

They did here on Willow, I believe.

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Is the pre-CTY "snowalert" list gone now? I havent gotten any messages from that system in a while. There was a post earlier this winter about trouble with the system.

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Do you always drive the speed limit on the highway?

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So, because not everyone follows the speed limit, the city shouldn't bother following its own policy?

See, that's the difference in this situation - we aren't talking about what violators do - we're talking about what the city has said it may do, and what their justification for it is.

Got a beef with that, call your alderman, not the wahmbulance.

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I have a bike. I walked into the auto zone a few years back and gave away my car because the tickets and towing were absurd.

This time, my Roommate, however go towed, when he stopped home to take a shower. Anything that is going to cost 85+ dollars, should, IMHO, needs to be addressed loudly, clearly, and with relation to the location of the tow-truck.

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Two hours is the minimum, and its not unusual for them to give much more on a holiday ( NYD is not a day known for bright early mornings ).

Why should they only give the minimum?

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Exactly why shouldn't they?

Two hours is the stated policy, you can find it on the city pages.

How about I quote the official statement given here, you can argue against that at your leisure:

DPW crews are beginning work as soon as possible on SCHOOL lots, roadways, paths and steps to ensure that that they are as clear as possible prior to the reopening of school tomorrow.

Edited Date: 2009-01-11 04:38 pm (UTC)

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(from above)
This time, my Roommate, however go towed, when he stopped home to take a shower. Anything that is going to cost 85+ dollars, should, IMHO, needs to be addressed loudly, clearly, and with relation to the location of the tow-truck.
(/snip)

Its not about the amount of time at all. Its about the immediacy, and all of those methods require access to technology, and without an actual imminent "snowstorm of doom" -- which last night's storm wasn't, there is extra reason, to draw attention to the towing, in a "I know there is only 1/4"of snow on the ground, but we need to clear the roads, and we're going to come here with the pat's tow guys in the next 20 minutes."

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somerville311.livejournal.com

The SnowAlert email system, based on software no longer supported by the company that produced it, was already scheduled for retirement at the end of the 2008-2009 snow season.

After it failed last month and could not be repaired, City IT personnel were able to extract the address list from the corrupted files and the Communications Dept. was able to load the information into the more robust Connect CTY database.

Subscribers to the older service should now be getting their email notifications via Connect CTY. If not, they should call 311 at any time (although preferably during normal business hours)to sign up for the Connect CTY service.

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I was home all day, studying, and I didn't hear a single announcement.

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ron_newman

Perhaps your roommate should sign up for the robo-calls, then.

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Because they aren't Barney Fife, that's why.

They seem to pad the "get out of the city lot" time to late morning/noonish on non-school days. They can use the afternoon to plow out the lots.

i.e. on 12/31:
The City of Somerville has lifted its snow emergency as of 8 p.m., Wednesday, December 31, 2008. Normally, residents parked in municipal or school lots during the snow emergency have a two-hour window starting at that time in which to move their vehicles, but this window will be extended until noon Thursday, New Year’s Day. Cars still parked in city lots at noon, January 1, 2009 may be subject to ticketing and towing.
http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1588636.html

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Would you rather they started towing from the city lots at 10pm on NYE?

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ukelele.livejournal.com

So have your roommate sign up. It's not hard to get this information. (It was even declared in this community (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1604220.html?nc=14) hours in advance of the fact.) Or see if there are blue flashy lights in any number of major intersections. It's widely known that Somerville will nail people with snow emergency tickets; I'm willing to assume that a citywide emergency applies to my street even if they don't give me a personalized call.

OK, I get that these may not be the channels you would prefer, but the fact is Somerville is going out of its way to make snow emergency information available in a variety of formats, and it is not difficult to avail yourself of them.

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Well, the cars have to be towed before too much snow falls, so the order to tow went out with the thinking that we were going to get the snowstorm of doom.

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ukelele.livejournal.com

Yes, I see that access to the internet poses an insuperable obstacle for you.

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I don't have to worry about it, so, the question is moot.

How the city chooses to give leeway on established policies is not my decision.

It's also likely, hell, even probable, that once the streets were plowed and salted sufficiently, maybe the city decided they wanted to give their ticketing and towing people some holiday time?

Maybe your alderman can better explain the thought process behind when and how they give leeway.

I suspect the davis_square LJ had quite a bit to do with the complaints about snow emergencies ending in the middle of a workday, leaving people worried they were going to get towed at 2pm, which then got changed.

I think that was either one or two years ago, in January.

Edited Date: 2009-01-11 04:48 pm (UTC)

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ron_newman

I know this topic has a history of stirring up emotions, but let's try to hold off on the personal insults today. Thanks.

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sapphira-altair.livejournal.com

Its not about the amount of time at all. Its about the immediacy, and all of those methods require access to technology, and without an actual imminent "snowstorm of doom" -- which last night's storm wasn't, there is extra reason, to draw attention to the towing, in a "I know there is only 1/4"of snow on the ground, but we need to clear the roads, and we're going to come here with the pat's tow guys in the next 20 minutes."

Certainly, it requires a landline or a cellular phone, and I'm sure your roommate has at least one of those.

Also, being about immediacy means it's about the amount of time. You're expecting them to say "hey we're towing you *right now*", but why should they? They've given you 8.5 hours warning.

One of the main reasons for instating a snow emergency is to clear the roads for plowing regardless of the amount of snow; it saves the city a lot of time and money to alert residents in a blanket fashion and I STILL think it's a waste of resources to expect the city to make additional announcements on top of "hey, we've told you not to park there, we gave you ample time to move your car, and also already probably ticketed you, but we'll give you ONE LAST WARNING."

Edited Date: 2009-01-11 04:54 pm (UTC)

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Already been forwarded.

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readsalot.livejournal.com

You can sign up for phone calls. Just call 311 and tell them that you'd like to get phone calls whenever the city sends out an alert. Is that too much technology?

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Right, and I appreciate that effort. But for me, its about immediacy. They towed 8 cars from outside my house -- they can't give a shout-out? Or is it that Pat's needs the income?

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prunesnprisms.livejournal.com

Ok. I definitely did, I was home between 5pm and 6pm, when I heard it.

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I think it's hit or miss, actually - I've seen a number of cars ticketed during the snow emergency, none towed, yet, in Ten Hills.

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alexdw.livejournal.com

Is there any particular reason that cars are towed during snow storms in the first place? It's not as if the city couldn't find snow plows that are a normal car width.

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wombatbanana.livejournal.com

I know there's a "library employees only" one, at least.

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ifotismeni

same process for unsubscribing? i no longer live in somerville but i keep getting the notices by TXT on my cell phone.

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nhradar.livejournal.com

Can we sign up for only email alerts (no phone) with Connect CTY? I got no email notice yesterday and assumed that snowalert had died, so went to sign up at the Connect CTY site, and the phone number seemed to be required. I'm happy to bother 311, but for something this simple it'd be nice to just do it online.

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chenoameg.livejournal.com

Anytime there's a big snowstorm forecast, assume that Somerville will declare a snow emergency.

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There's another dialog just for snow alerts:
"To Receive e-mail alerts during a Snow Emergency, please fill complete the below information and click the Subscribe Button."
http://www.somervillema.gov/Section.cfm?org=COMM&page=775

You might want to check that out. But I don't know if that enters you into CTY or if that's the old snowalert system.

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ron_newman

Yes, so that a wider section of the street can be plowed.

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pushupstairs.livejournal.com

if it's the one I'm thinking of, it holds about... 2 cars.

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pushupstairs.livejournal.com

so that only one side of the street has people's piles of snow that they can't be bothered to move into a yard or otherwise get rid of when they dig out their ca, instead of two sides.

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