Complaints about uneven snow removal are fairly common. Days after a storm blew through Boston last year, dozens of side streets and alleys were still packed with snow — I wondered if this took on a class dimension in Boston, as it supposedly did in Manhattan recently when wealthy residents accused the new mayor there of neglecting their streets, a sort of reverse-Dickensian tale.
Some New Yorkers interpreted the uneven snow removal in the city as Mayor Bill DeBlasio being true to his campaign promise to take on income inequality in the city.
New York's Massachusetts-born mayor denied the charge. But the question of whether snow removal takes on a class dimension, in terms of which neighborhoods get plowed first, was one we decided to explore locally.
We started with the wealthiest neighborhood in Boston: Beacon Hill. By 9:00 am Wednesday — the main arteries, Beacon and Charles Streets, were clear of snow. No surprise there but so too were secondary streets like Mt. Vernon. But several side streets in this tony neighborhood were still snowbound.
At the Department of Public Works yard on Frontage Road, snow plows and salt trucks drove in, loaded up and drove out.
Overseeing it all is DPW Commissioner Mike Dennehy — Boston’s new snow czar. I asked Dennehy how the city prioritizes snow removal, and guarantees that all neighborhoods are treated equitably in terms of services.
"We have ten public works district yards, and each of the supervisors are empowered to bring in the proper number of pieces to make sure that their neighborhoods — public works districts — have enough resources to make sure their streets are curb-to-curb and bare pavement as soon as we can," Dennehy said. "We start every storm the same way, where we treat our hills and bridges and our main drags. We want to keep Boston moving first and foremost. It’s a public safety issue on every street we touch. I mean, some of the nooks and crannies and the dead ends. The small streets in the North End. My mother lives on a very small one way in south Dorchester, so every street gets treated the same way."
Dennehy’s statement was borne out on the streets of Roxbury where I went next. Like Beacon Hill, all of the main arteries — Warren Avenue, Washington Street, Blue Hill Avenue — were all clear before 11 a.m., but so were many narrow side streets near Fort Hill.
Almost all of the roads in the city I visited were clean by 1:30. And I also took to social media to ask observers around the city to tell WGBH News what time the plows showed up to clear their streets, from Jamaica plain and Roslindale to Back Bay and Charlestown. In light of the discussion around income inequality and disparate treatment, I asked Dennehy if he specifically instructs his supervisors to treat all neighborhoods the same.
"Oh, most definitely," he said. "Myself, the deputy commissioner and the two assistant superintendents have touched the wall of each of the ten districts today, and they all understand that’s their fiefdom, and they take pride in their work and they make sure that each street is treated accordingly."
But some city residents don’t depend on the city at all to remove the white stuff.
The wealthiest street in Boston, Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill — the home of Secretary of State John Kerry — hires a private company to remove snow. A worker named Glynn was out blowing and shoveling the sidewalk at the height of the most recent storm.
And in Roxbury, I ran into six industrious young men — out of school because of the storm — who were willing and able to shovel out parking spaces and sidewalks for a fair price.
