browngirl

It frustrates and angers me that the local governments do not apply some fraction of the energy and technology to clearing pedestrian routes and bus stops that they do to clearing motor vehicle routes. Yeah, yeah, individual property owners are supposed to be responsible for shoveling the sidewalk, but even when they *do*, and even when they clear the whole sidewalk or most of it, rather than a single shovel-width, who's responsible for cutting through the plow berm at the curb cuts and at the bus stops, and keeping those clear? No one, apparently -- if you're *lucky* someone has chiseled a narrow stile through the wall so that you just have to maneuver your foot into the designated footprint rather than take up mountaineering. (And I find it hard to blame the owners of the corner properties for that, those berms are hefty constructions and regularly reinforced and biting into them is hard freaking work.) My granny-cart for groceries will be mostly on the street, not the sidewalk, until the next major thaw, and switching between the two is so much easier with that than with most wheelchairs. Wheelchair users in my area are almost certainly getting no use out of the sidewalks until spring.

... I'd better edit this into a letter to the medford city council, rather than waste the energy of this rant, huh?