Concord has created a monster. Not the mallet-wielding hulk we recommended to create more parking spaces downtown (meter expired? Sorry, Parking Man must smash and consume your vehicle), but an equally-vexing creature. And one that does its damage in a particularly striking way.
By doing absolutely nothing.
The city is generous enough to plow its sidewalks following snowstorms, using funky-looking snowblower/tractor machines to clear comfortable walking space. But there are a bunch of streets in Concord – like, more than 10 – and the city has a finite amount of machines and bodies to man those machines, all of which often means it can be a few days or even a week before your sidewalk is cleared.
So what happens in the meantime? Well, the conscientious among us bravely shovel a path wide enough for human travel. But there’s a growing percentage of the population that refuses to do even that, likely because they’re content to wait for someone else to do it for them. That’s the monster the city has created through its generous snow removal program.
The world doesn’t stop until the city plows arrive. People still have to do people things, like walk places or maybe take the dog out. When feet of snow are left untouched on sidewalks, they become significantly harder to traverse (it’s just science, people. Or maybe math.)
There are piles large enough on many city streets right now that entire classes of elementary schoolchildren could be establishing sidewalk communities complete with financial infrastructure and law enforcement and nobody would be the wiser.
So for those who need it, here’s quick step-by-step refresher on how to remove snow from your sidewalk: 1) Fill a shovel with snow. 2) Put said snow somewhere else. 3) Lather, rinse, repeat.
Simple, no? The elderly and otherwise physically unable obviously get a pass, but they should have neighbors or indebted children who can pitch in.
Nobody is asking for pristine, pre-snow conditions. We don’t have to be able to eat off the sidewalk (which is generally frowned upon in medical circles, anyway). But would it kill you to go outside for five minutes and move enough snow so that one or two people could safely pass by?
This is especially egregious in downtown areas, where the strip of sidewalk outside most houses is shorter than most Olympic long jumps. Four or five lazy swipes with a shovel and you’re done. But, like Wayne Gretzky once famously said, you miss 100 percent of the shovel swipes you don’t take.
The most maddening are those who shovel a perfect path from their house to the mailbox, cutting a small rectangle through the sidewalk while refusing to flick a solitary flake from the rest of the area.
So what happens when you don’t shovel the sidewalks? Residents, on-foot commuters and dog walkers have to use the edges of the street already made skinnier due to the snow, a dangerous proposition with cars careening by inches away. And just think how annoying it is when you’re driving and you have to veer around one of these meanderers in the road. Don’t be the reason they’re walking there.
Do the right thing, readers. Help your neighbors and fellow citizens. The next time it snows (which should be sometime before you finish reading this article at the rate we’ve been going), brush a small path for people to walk through.
It doesn’t have to be massive, or artistic, or any wider than two human legs. The city plows will be along shortly to cut a much wider and more comfortable swath. But it’s no fun setting out for work or the corner store and arriving with two shoes full of fresh, freezing powder simply because your neighbor couldn’t find it within himself to spare a couple hundred seconds.
Our advice: Don’t be that guy. Be the guy who has a shovel and knows how to use it.
