Special to the Independent
With the snow season now upon us, the City is well prepared for both snow removal and emergency measures. The Mayor recently met with his senior staff to ensure that the procedures, staffing, and supplies for snow removal and parking enforcement are effectively in place.
All pieces of snow removal equipment, both City-owned and contracted vehicles, along with several snow blowers for City buildings will be made available for the upcoming season. For major storms, crews will work in coordinated split shifts, utilizing plows, sanders, bobcat front-end loaders, and sidewalk plows to ensure the safety of the City’s main arteries, side streets and sidewalks. In the days following major storms, the DPW will continue the work of plowing and coordinating additional snow removal.
The City has reaffirmed its strategy for notifying residents of parking bans. Parking bans and restrictions will be implemented and enforced ahead of storms. Once the decision has been made to declare a snow emergency, the information will be made available to residents through robo calls, postings on ECTV, social media, website and by the activation of the blue emergency lights along main arteries. Residents can also call 311 for any information.
For this snow season, December 2022 – March/April of 2023, the year used for parking bans will be 2023 – an odd numbered year – thus vehicles should park on the ODD side of the street. For secondary streets, where parking is normally allowed on both sides when a snow emergency is called, parking is ONLY allowed on the side of the street where the house numbers are ODD. This would apply for the entire snow season. However, streets that are one-sided parking you must remain on the side that is usually allowed. As always, there is no parking permitted on main arteries during a parking ban.
Main arteries include:
•Chelsea, Hancock, Nichols, Norwood, Lawrence, Bell Rock, Bryant, Broadway, Main, Elm, Ferry, Fuller, Lynn, Bucknam, High, Garland, Alpine, Second, Tileston, Tremont, Union.
Failure to follow parking ban and snow emergency regulations will result in the ticketing and towing of vehicles.
The Code Enforcement Department would also like to remind people when shoveling not to throw snow back into the street. This hinders the efforts of the City to effectively plow our roadways, and is subject to fines. Also, using objects to reserve parking spaces on City streets is prohibited by City ordinance.
The Mayor and his administration ask that all residents help the City achieve a successful snow removal season by following these regulations, and thank everyone in advance for their cooperation. For more information, please call the Mayor’s Office at 617-394-2270.