If you're a motorist or an MBTA rider, this winter's snow has probably redefined your concept of pain. But if you're a pedestrian, a dedicated walker in the city, then what you've had to contend with is so bad, so painful, as to almost defy definition. Double that frustration -- if you can imagine it -- if you have any disabilities or physical challanges.
There’s probably no need to illustrate this scene for you, because you’ve probably lived it. But what the heck:
"This is a good one," said Brendan Kearney of the advocacy group WalkBoston. “So we’re at the corner of Surface and North, basically right behind Fanieul Hall, and yeah, there’s a giant barrier of snow in the way right now in the middle of the intersection because it’s on an island, and it’s no one’s responsibility, I guess. And here comes a guy pushing a stroller at us. He has to go all around the way around the giant pile, look around the pile with his cute little kid in a monkey hat — 'Hi!'"
Kearney’s point is the situation isn’t safe for the guy with the stroller, or really any pedestrians these days. Unshoveled or half-shoveled sidewalks and tall mounds of snow blocking sidewalks from intersections make difficult obstacle courses for the most able-bodied. Everyone from walkers to people in wheelchairs are forced out onto the streets, and then forced to scatter when cars appear. And then they hear this from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh:
"We’re asking people to stay off the streets as much as possible, not to be walking," Walsh said. "Try not to walk on the streets. I know it’s very difficult. A lot of the sidewalks haven’t been cleared."
As Boston’s residents have suffered through weeks of snowstorms, there’s been careful attention paid to clearing the roads, but sidewalks are still hit and miss. That’s meant hazards for pedestrians and little to no mobility for disabled people. There’s a growing chorus of people urging a new set of transportation priorities.
It’s enough for fed-up, earth-bound Bostonians to think there’s a bias toward cars is this town.
"There’s absolutely a car bias," said Wendy Landman, executive director of WalkBoston.
The organization might be the loudest voice among many groups now sending the same message: Let’s figure this out for the next time. Landman says the current situation on the sidewalks would never be tolerated on the roads. Over the past three weeks the city has issued 4,000 tickets for $50 or more to people who haven’t cleared pathways for pedestrians. But Landman says that apparently isn’t enough.
"Unfortunately we’re not firing anybody for not shoveling sidewalks," she said. "Because it’s all of our responsibility."
Property owners and tenants are responsible for clearing sidewalks within hours of when snow stops falling. And Landman says that’s kind of the problem. When sidewalks are everyone’s responsibilty, they’re no one’s responsibility, because everyone can point the finger at someone else.
"So it’s dealing with just an incredible number of actors to make it work and everybody has to do their part right or it doesn’t work. And if you just have that one gap, it doesn’t work.”
Landman says the pedestrian issue probably hasn’t been the highest priority for officials because so far, deaths and injuries have been isolated. At least three people have died: two people struck by snowplows in Medford and Weymouth and one man in Brighton who had heart attack while shoveling. But hospitals say besides that, snow-related injuries aren’t higher than average for this time of the year. Boston Emergency Medical Services reported 13 pedestrian-involved incidents in the second week of February, compared with 10 incidents in the same week last year.
Karen Schneiderman, an advocate with the Boston Center for Independent Living, says while it might not be reflected in any numbers collected, people are suffering.
"I think people are just staying in," Schneiderman said. "I think the reason we don’t see incidents is that people can't go out. I think if people could go out, there would be accidents. But I think because so many people are trapped, they’re not going to call a hospital and say, 'I feel trapped.'”
Schneiderman was trapped in her home for nearly a week during the recent series of punishing snowstorms. She uses a non-motorized wheelchair and it became impossible for her husband and friends to keep the ramps near their home clear.
"Being at home was so demoralizing," she said. "I felt like I had gone from this average, intelligent working person with a life to somebody who really couldn’t do that much except talk on the phone or watch television or read a book.”
Walsh has said that once this is all over, the city’s going to take a close look at what can be done better. And Schneiderman says that’s the key — there has to be a plan in place for next time — even if this historic series of snowstorms doesn’t repeat next year, or the one after that.
"Everybody has a right, because it’s a law," she said. "You must have equal access to travel."
Whatever plan officials create needs to answer all the questions of who is responsible for clearing what, Schneiderman says, so everyone’s right to travel is preserved — even during historic winters.
