It's time for city government and the able-bodied among us to shoulder a bigger load in making our city accessible to all.
The following is a modest proposal on how to make the communal joy of a snowstorm available to more people — without breaking the bank — and make a better city in the process.
1. People from snowy climes know it is possible for the community to rally and promptly clear sidewalks.Most people in those places do it because it is a community expectation. But we all knows that goes only so far. I spent some time last winter in Somerville, Massachusetts, where failure to clear snow within six daylight hours of the end of a storm leads to a $50 fine for a first offense, $100 for a second and $200 for a third. The fine was a powerful incentive to get the walkways shoveled, and people took it seriously. Seattle could start with a public education campaign to give people time to prepare, then enforce the laws already on the books requiring property owners to clear their sidewalks. Just as how we enforce parking rules, we could have city inspectors cite properties that haven’t cleared a safe path. Of course, this will also require a culture shift. Right now, we treat the law requiring us to clear sidewalks the way we treat the rule against fireworks — we ignore it. But I’m suggesting we treat it like the rule against smoking indoors — because it’s the right thing to do for those around us. Finally, for those property owners physically unable to do so, I speak from experience as a youthful entrepreneur in New York to let you know that people will materialize to do it for a reasonable fee, from the kindness of their heart, or because their parents told them no shoveling for money until you take care of the senior citizen next door.
2. How about the city clearing a basic network for walking and wheelchairs the way we clear a basic arterial network for cars and trucks? It’s not as hard as it sounds if the city completes a basic network of protected bike lanes as found in the Bike Master Plan. Seattle could buy right-sized equipment for clearing, salting and sanding the protected bike lanes, and in snowstorms this would be open to users on foot or in wheelchairs. This would complement the sidewalk-clearing efforts of property owners. It would be far better than the all-too-common occurrence in the past storm of people walking in arterial street lanes because there was no clear sidewalk.
3. Mobilize more crews to work by hand to clear crosswalks and places with heavy pedestrian use — for example, near bus stops, neighborhood business districts and schools. Because of expense, we are going to buy only so many plows, but there isn't the same capital-spending barrier to the number of hand crews. In this past storm, we had 14 hand crews out working. We could draw from existing city employees who already take care of our city facilities and reprioritize them to snow-clearing duty. In fact, as the scope of the problem has become clear, Mayor Durkan declared Wednesday, Feb. 13, as “Shared Shovel” day, mobilizing new hand crews from the Seattle Parks, Seattle Public Utilities and other departments to open walking routes to school. This could be incorporated into our snow-removal response from the outset.
