With the temps hovering around a wee above and below freezing…. mainly below, the ugly nasty multicolored snow is going to be with us for a while. Some blocks are awesome and well shoveled. Fourth St, parts of Q, parts of 8th, the sidewalks are passable, it’s just bad when you go from well shoveled to a few deep footsteps leading to the slushy road. Hey DC gov, I’ll not walk in the street if you actually cite people for not shoveling. When there is some sort of pathway, I’ll stick to the sidewalk, so the advisement’s to not walk in the street is pointless when your law (is it a law or just an impotent regulation?) has no teeth.
You make people change sides of the street during street cleaning or move their cars for rush hour. And regardless of health, vacation or what have you, people find a way to comply. Why? Because when you enforce it with ticketing, it gets done. Back when DC didn’t bother ticketing anything on my street, cars would sit for weeks without moving. There were signs saying move, but they were ignored. Then the city started seriously ticketing, and now neighbors will move your car (if you ask nicely & give gifts) if you can’t because of vacation or weird job schedules or the fact that you’re in a 1/2 body cast. So until the city actually backs up the admonitions of not walking in the street and pleas to owners to shovel their sidewalks with real money fines and liens, there is only shaming. Here are a few blog posts of shame in Mt Vernon, Georgetown, and on Georgia Avenue.
I’m pretty shoveled out but I see a few bus stops I may want to use in the coming days (as this crap will still be around) that need shoveling, as I have no intention of walking the .25 mile to the station in yellow snow lined icy paths.