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Stuck in the Middle With You!
Not enough lawyers per square mile?
My car was stuck half way up on Cypress street last winter. If I have to leave the house during a snow storm, I come back via Olney, then Camp. Try that.
I was trapped in my house yesterday, because I live on a side street, and it is not a priority for snow removal. However, it is a very hilly street, so even if you manage to get out of your driveway, after that your car will slide downhill, and do not count on good tires and new breakes, gravity will do its trick on a slippery surface. All you have left is to pray that you will not collide with another car at the bottom of the hill, because it is a T-intersection.
I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, so I had to call David Pontarelli at ONS and to beg for help. Forty minutes later my street was ploughed. Thank you, David.
My question is why did I have to call David at all. We live in the North East, and every winter we have snow, we can count on that like we can count on a tax bill from the City. Why don't we have a reliable system in place that would insure adequate snow removal in our City?
And by the way Cypress Street is a major street and it is on a hill, it should be on the priority list for snow removal so that people unfamiliar with Mt. Hope shortcuts should be able to use Cypress Street at all times.
And why year after year College Hill streets are being cleaned much better than ours? Is it because we, in Mt. Hope, have fewer lawyers per square mile who could raise hell if the streets are not ploughed?
Irene
Posted at December 10, 2005 10:17 AM
It's John Nickleson, the DPW Director who is responsible for Providence's streets being an embarrassment. He dropped the ball.
Mayor Cicilline made a much ballyhooed hiring of Mr. Nickleson to run the DPW. Nickleson came over from the State Highway Department, if I'm not mistaken. Mr. Cicilline gave him a very generous compensation package derived from our property taxes.
You can lay the snow removal fiasco right at Nickleson's doorstep--snow removal is his responsibility, not the firefighter's union, not David Cicilline's.
ProJo reported a few weeks ago that Nickleson fired a long time member of the DPW team, a 15 year member responsible for snow removal. The City Council was outraged at this firing and implied that Nickleson should be making sure that under his watch the streets would be cleand adequeately or the Council would be looking at a top-down revamping of the DPW.
Please, sirs, start looking.
Remember the street cleaning fiasco in Mt. Hope last year? Welcome to the 2005/2006 snow removal fiasco.
Yesterday as I shoveled, I watched car after car try to climb Locust from Knowles only to get halfway before they began spinning their wheels and having to back down the street in reverse.
I'm no fan of the firefighters union, but let's place blame where it belongs. The DPW uses private contractors to remove snow, that is why you see so many small pick-up trucks plowing our streets. The City is slow to pay them, and so the city is under staffed. They are also poorly supervised and directed by the DPW management.
The streets are not addressed in any systematic manner, and certain areas get preferential treatment. Even within Mt. Hope, drive down Jenkins Street, and you'll see it plowed curb to curb and down to the pavement--why, because a Councilman lives in an apartment on Jenkins Street.
Mt. Hope gets short shrift in city services, and this fiasco provides a vivid example--to leave our steep, hilly streets unplowed while making sure that every street on College Hill is beautifully cleaned is simply insulting and outrageous.
Posted by: John at December 11, 2005 11:53 AM
Thanks for the other alternative route I can use when (apparently not if) Cypress Street is impassable during our normal New England wintry weather. FYI, Cypress between North Main and Camp was STILL impassable late Saturday afternoon, as I observed from my vantage point at The Crossroads. That is truly unbelievable. It was 24 hours after the storm ended!
We are not alone in our outrage against unplowed and unsanded city streets. While I was stuck on Cypress Friday afternoon, several people asked if they could help. I said, no I'll wait for the sander. They all said the condition of the city streets is deplorable. Some noted that the state highways were in good shape.
And where is the Providence Journal is covering this story? I haven't seen one word on who is to blame for the condition of the streets.
I'm not sure whether it is incompetence or a failure to change attitudes after 26 years of entrenched corruption and "I'm from the government and I'm NOT here to help you" syndrome.
I'm still of the belief that the unions want to get revenge on Mayor Cicilline for daring to oppose the unacceptable demands of their brothers in the firefighters union. That group isn't very mature. Their favorite pastime when not picketing the mayor's appearances is to throw eggs at his Lincoln town car.
Posted by: Peter Cassels at December 11, 2005 04:25 AM