Christopher Webb (Director of Public Health) assigned this issue to Craig Powers (Health Department)

The poster is correct about the condition. However that snow pile is not on or from the sidewalk. It is from the street and was piled there by city plows. The piling of snow at corners, typically directly on top of disabled access ramps, is the problem here, as it is elsewhere throughout the city. This is a practice that the city needs to address so that residents like the poster can safely access sidewalks and street crossings.

I also live on a corner lot and yes it is a pain when the plow pushes the snow back onto sidewalk but it is still my responsibility to keep it clear.

Property owners at 15 Winter & 21 Winter St were issued warnings.

While I think you deserve tremendous credit for going above and beyond, Citizen, I have to respectfully disagree that a home owner has a legal responsibility in this circumstance (though I do agree that they may have an ethical one). The ordinance talks about removing any "accumulating" snow. The undoubtedly concious choice to use that term has legal implications. Under the law the term "accumulating" refers to snow that falls from the sky or is blown -- in other words, snow that got there naturally. It does not include snow deposited or piled by human hands (or machines). So you have an obligation to remove the former, but not the latter. That said, I'm by no means suggesting that you stop doing what you have been doing. While I don't live on a corner, I also make sure to clear through the snowbank where the disabled access point is. If I lived on a corner, I would certainly do my best. But a six foot high snow pile is a tall order for most people. Like I said, it may be an ethical obligation, even if it isn't a legal one. But not everyone has the capacity to take that on. And the government can't require someone to and punish them for not doing it. The government put it there. So it's up to them to remove it. That gets to a broader point about pedestrian access and particularly the rights of the disabled. I think that the practice by many municipalities of piling snow on the access ramps, and expecting private citizens to deal with the mess, leaves these entities potentially legally vulnerable under the ADA. I would very much like to see cities like ours take a hard look at this problem and come up with some policies to help to preserve as much access as is reasonably possible.

About 2:05 PM today, on15 Winter St. A poor guy falls on the busy road when he tries to cross the snowbank to main road as the sidewalk is not walkable.

Saw some kids and parents after school who had to walk in street down winter because the sidewalk wasn’t clear. It’s a narrow street as it without the snow.

Warning didn’t help for the house on the corner. Had to walk in the street again. Noticed their own walkway is nicely shoveled though. I was out Thursday night shoveling and salting my sidewalk. Please enforce this!

At about 6:30 pm last night, a half dozen pedestrians leaving Oak Grove got stuck standing in the street to get around this corner and there was a near miss accident with one of them and an oncoming vehicle. There's no easy way to even cross Winter Street to avoid the sidewalks here.

Property owners at 15 Winter & 21 Winter St were issued warnings.

It truly is a terrible situation. But again, there are TWO problems in play here. The owner certainly must clear the sidewalk of accumulating snow. But the massive snow banks piled onto the sidewalk and blocking the ramps are not the owner's fault or responsibility. That is the fault of the city plows that year after year build massive mountains of snow at that corner and along Winter. Because the travel lanes on the road are so narrow the plows have little choice but to pile it onto the sidewalk. But that still doesn't make it the residents' problem. What ought to be happening is that DPW ought to clear the obstruction that city plowing operations have created. They actually did a very good job at the corners of Rosemont and Kenmore where they meet Main. And the MBTA has done a great job clearing its walkways. So it can and must be done. Beyond that, rather than focusing our dissatisfaction on our neighbors, perhaps we should ask: what has the city's role been in creating the problem? And what more can city government be doing to fix it?

BTW as a resident on Autumn who drives through that intersection at least daily, I could not agree more concerning the danger posed to pedestrians, which makes it all that much more important that the city step in rather than waiting for a resident to do it, regardless of whose obligation it is.

Sidewalk cleared