General Infrastructure

[millerm277]

Yeah... I've been not wanting to comment on it on say the Pike Straightening thread, but.... there is a very real chance the feds pull funding for all of this stuff at this point.

I think it's very unlikely that this gets through Congress.

Perhaps they find a different angle to not pay, but I don't think this particular approach is too likely to succeed.

 

[Justbuildit]

Not to be alarmist, but I don't think deference to congress is a concern at all for this administration. Agencies have and will continue to decide how funds are disbursed despite congressional appropriation. Unless the money has been dispatched to state/municipal accounts, I really do believe the executive branch (WH or through the agencies) will happily be canceling existing agreements/commitments.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Not to be alarmist, but I don't think deference to congress is a concern at all for this administration. Agencies have and will continue to decide how funds are disbursed despite congressional appropriation. Unless the money has been dispatched to state/municipal accounts, I really do believe the executive branch (WH or through the agencies) will happily be canceling existing agreements/commitments.

The Administration has even clawed back monies already distributed.

Happened in NYC -- $80 million.

 

[KCasiglio]

Not to be alarmist, but I don't think deference to congress is a concern at all for this administration. Agencies have and will continue to decide how funds are disbursed despite congressional appropriation. Unless the money has been dispatched to state/municipal accounts, I really do believe the executive branch (WH or through the agencies) will happily be canceling existing agreements/commitments.

Agreed. Existing NOFOs have already been rescinded. Congress may have appropriated the money, but the executive branch has discretion over the exact details of its distribution. Not a lawyer, obviously, but unless they say the money is not going to get distributed at all it seems to me sound enough legally. If they want to re-write NOFOs and pick and choose new funding recipients, I think it's a bad idea and bad for the credibility of federal DOT as a partner, but I'd be more surprised to see that somehow shot down than to be 'successful' (in clawing back money).

 

[themissinglink]

‘It’s dangerous, and it’s scary’: Icy sidewalks are a menace for pedestrians in Boston - The Boston Globe

Frigid temperatures have sent people slipping and tumbling on icy sidewalks, and emergency rooms are seeing an increased number of patients.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[KCasiglio]

‘It’s dangerous, and it’s scary’: Icy sidewalks are a menace for pedestrians in Boston - The Boston Globe

Frigid temperatures have sent people slipping and tumbling on icy sidewalks, and emergency rooms are seeing an increased number of patients.

www.bostonglobe.com

This is my first winter having a kid and being car-free. The lack of sidewalk maintenance makes it such a burden. The bus stop we get off at for daycare is never shoveled and on a high speed road with no shoulder/bike lane between the road and sidewalk. It's deeply unsafe! I'm glad it's getting some attention.

 

[bigpicture7]

This is my first winter having a kid and being car-free...

Ah, welcome to this esteemed club : ). Just wait till the little one gets a lot heavier and the ol' pick-up-the-whole-stroller-over-the-snow-mound technique is no longer practical (or a recipe for throwing out your back). Or, make sure they're strapped in well, because the accelerate-the-stroller-to-plow-through-the-snow-mound technique can sometimes result in launching the kid out. But don't worry, once they're fully able to traverse snow on their own, it will take 5x as long to walk to/from preschool because of the play-in-the-snow distractions or the "I'm tired" sitting down on the snow mound.
Other than that, it's pure joy. Car-free + kid + winter + city...it builds character!

 

[KCasiglio]

Ah, welcome to this esteemed club : ). Just wait till the little one gets a lot heavier and the ol' pick-up-the-whole-stroller-over-the-snow-mound technique is no longer practical (or a recipe for throwing out your back). Or, make sure they're strapped in well, because the accelerate-the-stroller-to-plow-through-the-snow-mound technique can sometimes result in launching the kid out. But don't worry, once they're fully able to traverse snow on their own, it will take 5x as long to walk to/from preschool because of the play-in-the-snow distractions or the "I'm tired" sitting down on the snow mound.
Other than that, it's pure joy. Car-free + kid + winter + city...it builds character!

My daughter has long preferred the bus to the car* so I've gotten used to a lot of the challenges, but we always had the car to fall back on for the worst days. Certainly character building!

*None exists as far as I know, but I'd love to see some research into children's opinions on cars versus transit. I feel like my daughter found being strapped in a car seat very restrictive compared to the relative freedom offered by the bus. Even in the worst weather days when I'd insist we drive she'd be sad about not being able to take the bus to preschool. Taking the train is like half the fun of going places for her.

 

[ritchiew]

This is my first winter having a kid and being car-free. The lack of sidewalk maintenance makes it such a burden. The bus stop we get off at for daycare is never shoveled and on a high speed road with no shoulder/bike lane between the road and sidewalk. It's deeply unsafe! I'm glad it's getting some attention.

Just a couple weeks ago, a close family member slipped on ice, fell, broke his hip. (In Chicago, not here.) He said most of the other people waiting at the emergency room that night were also there because of slipping on ice. I'm so pissed off how little cities seem to care about this.

Do any towns around here handle this well? Like, either property owners actually clear the sidewalks reliably, or the city just does it?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Do any towns around here handle this well? Like, either property owners actually clear the sidewalks reliably, or the city just does it?

No. It seems to be a courtesy totally lost to the sands of time. I see lots of small shops that don't even shovel their sidewalks, and that's lost business.

 

[thepixelnation]

My daughter has long preferred the bus to the car* so I've gotten used to a lot of the challenges, but we always had the car to fall back on for the worst days. Certainly character building!

*None exists as far as I know, but I'd love to see some research into children's opinions on cars versus transit. I feel like my daughter found being strapped in a car seat very restrictive compared to the relative freedom offered by the bus. Even in the worst weather days when I'd insist we drive she'd be sad about not being able to take the bus to preschool. Taking the train is like half the fun of going places for her.

Growing up downtown, my family had a car and used it frequently to get around (I know). Taking the Red Line to Harvard Square or the Green Line to Fenway was always a special treat to me.

 

[fatnoah]

*None exists as far as I know, but I'd love to see some research into children's opinions on cars versus transit

When we lived in Back Bay, my kid definitely preferred walking and/or transit to driving. We'd make it an adventure and get off at random places and check out what's around, which is much more difficult with a car. As a bonus, we were virtually guaranteed to run into a friend from school or sports while out and about on foot, and that rarely happened while in cars.

We were regulars on the 55 bus from the Pru Mall entrance to Charles Street @ Beacon Street. In fact, when they removed the Pru stop, we didn't notice for a couple months because the driver would stop for us anyway. When a new driver drove right past us, I finally realized the change. Of course, I don't think the 55 even goes that way any more.

 

[Roxxma]

Do any towns around here handle this well? Like, either property owners actually clear the sidewalks reliably, or the city just does it?

I know that in Burlington the DPW plows most of the sidewalks, at least on major and secondary roads, beginning in the residential areas and moving to the commercial areas after. The town has at least one of its own little sidewalk plows, and I've seen plows trucks with a side plow for sidewalks. The street there that I grew up on and where my parents still live, is more of a secondary road and didn't have sidewalks until the 1990s when the town implemented a sidewalk building and repair program. I think it bought its own sidewalk plow around the time. A couple of years ago I went to visit my parents a day after a fairly significant snowfall and was really surprised to see the completely cleared, sanded and salted sidewalk the whole way down the street. I asked my parents about it and they said they usually come right after the snow ends and are pretty good about keeping it clear.

 

[North Shore]

Having designed sidewalks for a number of municipalities, I know that a bunch have plows and/or skid steer mounted snow blowers to clear sidewalks along major routes that children use to walk to schools. Even though ADA and AAB regulations cite a minimum of 3'-0" clear width from obstructions, on Town I worked with required 5'-0" at a minimum so that they could ensure their snow equipment could get by.

 

[bigpicture7]

Having designed sidewalks for a number of municipalities, I know that a bunch have plows and/or skid steer mounted snow blowers to clear sidewalks along major routes that children use to walk to schools. Even though ADA and AAB regulations cite a minimum of 3'-0" clear width from obstructions, on Town I worked with required 5'-0" at a minimum so that they could ensure their snow equipment could get by.

First, thank you for the great and important work you do!
As a "user," I'll just share a couple of related observations (that you're probably already aware of)...
-A lot of times areas with old-growth trees have enduring tree root issues that make the sidewalks uneven that those mini-snow clearers struggle to deal with. In East Cambridge, for instance, they have dug-up and repaired sidewalks over and over again around theses old trees (sometime using different pavement types to try to mitigate it). Everyone loves the big old trees, so it creates a painful tradeoff (usually in favor of keeping the trees). Tree varieties planted in the past ~30 years don't tend to have this problem
-Oftentimes the ADA tactile strips at curb cuts get destroyed by those mini-plows/skid steers
-And most challengingly for the folks in wheelchairs and strollers: Even when the very best of sidewalk designs gets implemented, it's a simple order of operations issue: if the sidewalks (including curb cuts) get perfectly cleared, and then the street snowplows roll by afterwards, a snowbank blocks the curb cut anyway. That was one of the biggest issues from my stroller rolling days: having mostly clear sidewalks, but then not being able to cross the street.

 

[Stlin]

I have no idea how feasible this is in Boston given how un-environmentally friendly it is, but in areas of downtown I'd love to see them put in a snow melt system; famously there's heated sidewalks and streets in places like Reykjavik and Helsinki, which just make winter much less messy to be outdoors in. Here in the US, there's a small city in Michigan that has most of its downtown sidewalks and streets heated. It's relatively rare that we have icy conditions quite this bad, but at least it eliminates salting.

 

[KCasiglio]

I have no idea how feasible this is in Boston given how un-environmentally friendly it is, but in areas of downtown I'd love to see them put in a snow melt system; famously there's heated sidewalks and streets in places like Reykjavik and Helsinki, which just make winter much less messy to be outdoors in. Here in the US, there's a small city in Michigan that has most of its downtown sidewalks and streets heated. It's relatively rare that we have icy conditions quite this bad, but at least it eliminates salting.

Please propose looking into this as a study idea for the MPO. I think it's very much worth looking into what a winter priority network would look like and cost.

 

[WestMedford]

Berlin NH received a federal grant years ago to implement such a system using a biomass plant along the Androscoggin River.

Berlin snowmelt project to continue

According to this article as of July 2024 the city was still intending to move forward with the project despite the bankruptcy of the plant. Who knows if it will be viable given the plant’s situation and if DOGE gets involved (the article references the small Michigan town of Holland).

 

[themissinglink]

Berlin NH received a federal grant years ago to implement such a system using a biomass plant along the Androscoggin River.

Berlin snowmelt project to continue

According to this article as of July 2024 the city was still intending to move forward with the project despite the bankruptcy of the plant. Who knows if it will be viable given the plant’s situation and if DOGE gets involved (the article references the small Michigan town of Holland).

That's really cool, I hope they go through with it. New England should have more snowmelt systems.

 

[millerm277]

I have no idea how feasible this is in Boston given how un-environmentally friendly it is, but in areas of downtown I'd love to see them put in a snow melt system; famously there's heated sidewalks and streets in places like Reykjavik and Helsinki, which just make winter much less messy to be outdoors in. Here in the US, there's a small city in Michigan that has most of its downtown sidewalks and streets heated. It's relatively rare that we have icy conditions quite this bad, but at least it eliminates salting.

I'll be the wet blanket:

Iceland has basically unlimited nearly free power thanks to the same reason there's volcanoes erupting there all the time, and nowhere to export it to. It's why they smelt aluminum there even though the raw materials aren't mined there - it's one of the most power-intensive industries on the planet and Iceland has too much power.

As far as I can tell Helsinki only does this in a few streets. (and Finland's grid is almost entirely off fossil fuels, FWIW)

-------

Anyway....heating streets to melt snow/ice is incredibly energy-intensive when actually operating, and maintenance intensive - and potentially with significant safety risks if *not* maintained well, if you go the electrical route.

New England's power grid is most strained in long periods of winter cold weather - which is exactly when these sorts of things would be most used/theoretically useful, too.

It will also drastically drive up the cost of any other utility (or road) work in the area - both in terms of normal roadwork being more expensive, and in terms of anything that needs to get at utilities under the road being much more expensive.

It makes about no sense to install in any meaningfully large area unless you have nearly free power or free waste heat from something. It can make a little sense for a very short/problematic walkway section or staircase, but that's about it IMO.....and Boston/MA's usual quality of infrastructure upkeep makes me skeptical that such a system would stay working safely for long.