A few days after December’s snowpocalypse, a middle-aged man using an electric wheelchair was spotted on East-West Highway in South Silver Spring, attempting to navigate a narrow strip of bare sidewalk. He wasn’t having much luck.
Photo: Dude, what's the deal here? Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
After squeezing past snow piles nearly as high as his head, he encountered unshoveled sidewalk too sloppy for his wheelchair to manage. He was forced to throw the wheelchair in reverse, back the way he came, to find a clear path.
That particular sidewalk has since been cleared, but one downtown sidewalk (photo) remains unshoveled two weeks after the snowpocalypse buried the hood under 20 inches of snow.
Along Colesville Road, outside a short office building and yards from a bus stop, a snow pile blocks passage for peds on foot and wheels. Ironically, the sidewalk around it and an adjacent parking lot are clear slabs of concrete and asphalt.
The storm’s cleanup left a nasty, metallic taste on the palettes of some, including council member Valerie Ervin (D-District 5). Soon after the storm subsided, she requested a council hearing on why the county’s volunteer center wasn’t dispatched to help shovel sidewalks.
“I am proud to hear that many residents are willing to step forward and help shovel the driveways and sidewalks of those residents unable to do so,” Ervin wrote to council president Nancy Floreen (D-At large). “However, I was notified that, contrary to public information on the county’s website, the county’s volunteer center will not be coordinating volunteers, as it had done in previous years.”
Ervin also claimed that her constituents (including downtown Silver Springers) had to deal with unplowed streets longer than other county residents did. ”I simply want to ensure that the processes and procedures related to [the snow plows'] deployment are equitable,” she wrote.
In response, Floreen said she would schedule a hearing with the transportation department this month, when the council resumes its session.
While council members consider the county’s response to the snowpocalypse, drivers must deal with another lingering effect: potholes. The smaller ones can test a car’s shock absorbers, but two gaping fissures threaten to blow out tires at the intersection of Burlington Avenue and Fenton Street in Fenton Village.
Residents can report potholes in need of repair through the transportation department’s complaint form. Complaints of unshoveled sidewalks go to this form.
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There is an entire lane blocked by a 8′ X 30′ snow mountain on Washington Ave, which connects E-W Highway and Grubb Road. Cars and buses have to swing out into oncoming traffic to get around it. Bus drivers can see over the snow but vehicular drivers cannot so it’s just a matter of time before there is a serious accident there.
Wish I had a camera on me mid-day today. On Montgomery College campus, someone was hacking away at a snow mountain in the street. He (I presume the person was male) was using a small, orange machine with blades that ground up the frozen snow. Alas, it seemed to just toss it onto the sidewalk. Maybe they were going to plow the blown-out snow, placing it on the median? I didn’t stick around to find out. But the machine looked pretty nifty.