City Council - City Services Committee Hearing on Dockets #0270, #0291-0292

Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Ed Flynn, District 2 City Council, Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on City Services. Today is March 3rd. 2026, the exact time is 2.01. The hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash citycouncil dash tv. Broadcast on Xfinity, Channel 8, RCN, Channel 82, Fios 962. Written comments may be sent to the committee. email at ccc.csit.boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all city councils. Public testimony will be taken at the end of the At the end of the hearing, at the beginning of the hearing, and throughout the hearing.

Individuals will be called on an order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify, but I don't like to. If you take an extra minute to three minutes, I think that's okay. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. next to that television over there. If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Shane Pack at shane.pack, P-A-C, at boston.gov for the link. Your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0270, order for a hearing to explore snow removal relief and options. There's several dockets. I'm going to read them into the record.

This matter was sponsored by City Councilor Enrique Pepén, referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026. Docket 0291, order for hearing to discuss the creation of a snow core in Boston. sponsored by Councilors Worrell, Mejia, and Councilors Pepén. Refer to the committee on February 4th. Docket 0292, order for a hearing to discuss the City of Boston purchasing snow melters. The matter was sponsored by Councilor Flynn. Councilor Worrell referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026. Today I'm joined by colleagues in order of arrival. I may not necessarily have the correct arrival.

and if I don't, I'll make a note of it, Councilor Murphy, Councilor Santana, Councilor Durkan, Councilor Pepén, Council President Breadon. I would like to give every city council the opportunity to make an opening statement, then we're gonna go to the panel, hear from the panel, community panel, and then Go to Q&A, then we'll have the opportunity for the administration. But we'll make sure everybody has the opportunity to testify for the public as well. But since Councilor Pepén is an original

is a sponsor of one of the dockets. Councillor Pepén, would you like to go first, please?

Absolutely. First of all, thank you, Mr. Chair, for hosting and sponsoring this important hearing. It's good to see a lot of advocates in the room. I see some former colleagues in the room and they're just thankful for all the advocacy work that's happening from the community side about these topics. Here in Boston, we know that living in New England means preparing for brutal winters. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For many families, snow isn't just an inconvenience, it becomes a barrier to safety, to mobility and daily life. In response, when the first storm happened, our office launched Pepén's Snow Angels, a volunteer initiative to connect neighbors willing to shovel for those who cannot. We were able to see 39 individuals sign up to volunteer.

That speaks to the spirit of the community in our neighborhoods. However, I also want to just express my deep appreciation to the city departments that do step up during the snowstorms because it is not an easy lift. Our public works department Really does an amazing job, especially during this past blizzard. We were able to see quite a significant improvement in terms of the response to it and Our streets looked amazing. 311 call takers, I also just want to give a shout out to them because they work 24 hours throughout the day receiving a lot of phone calls. So I just wanted to make sure that my appreciation is shared there. Their efforts do not go unnoticed by my office. But today's hearing, I want to make sure that this isn't about any type of criticism. It's about improvement. It's about asking how we can build on what's working and what's not working and how to explore new ideas in our city. including models like a snow corpse or similar to one that's being implemented in New York City.

My hope is that we continue striving to be a city that welcomes innovation and I'm really looking forward to hearing the public testimony today because I think that your voices are very important to this topic. You have my commitment to work on this. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Council Pepén. Let me go to Council Murphy. Council Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair Flynn. Thank you. It's always great when we have... A hearing and the chamber is full and so looking forward to this hearing today. As you'll hear probably again and again that I heard from many residents across every neighborhood during and after the storms, and it is clear they were frustrated with the snow removal response. When sidewalks are not cleared promptly, when bus stops are buried and when streets remain difficult to navigate, that affects our seniors, families, small businesses, and especially residents with disabilities. Our frontline city workers put in long hours under difficult conditions, and I'm grateful for their effort. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that too many people felt stuck and unheard.

Today's hearing is an opportunity to take a hard look at what didn't work, whether it was coordination, communication, contractor oversight, equipment readiness, or Resource Deployment, we need a clear accounting of how decisions were made and what supports may be needed before the next storm. Boston residents deserve a snow response that is timely, equitable, and dependable in every neighborhood. And that is the standard we must meet, and it is a standard that I'll continue to push for here today. So thank you. And I just want to also note that the first council hearing after the snowstorm, we had three colleagues file Thank you very much. We don't do this again, so thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy. Let me go to Councillor Henry Santana. Councillor Santana?

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you for chairing this hearing and thank you to all the sponsors. I think this is a very important topic. Really love to see the community, the residents, the different organizations who are here. I think as my colleagues mentioned I think all of our residents were affected by the snowstorm and I think for me you know definitely want to give a shout out to Public Works and the work that they do and working in extreme difficult conditions. I also wanted to give a shout out to the community engagement cabinet. I know after this past snowstorm, I know that the liaisons got together and every neighborhood and rallied up volunteers to help with shoveling. I think this is a topic that many of our residents really care about because it's something that affects them and affects All of them and you know, I have family that lives in public housing.

I know that I had to go out and help my parents get shoveled out in public housing. So definitely have a lot of questions about the operations. and making sure that we're taking care of our seniors, persons with disability. I'm really proud to be part of a council that wants to strive for excellence. Our residents deserve this. and it's about quality of life and basic city services. So I'm looking forward to this hearing. I'm looking forward to hearing from residents. I will have to step out Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you so much, Chair. The City was prepared for both storms, and City workers worked day and night each time. This most recent storm brought more consistent temperatures and more predictable snowfall, which allowed teams to pre-treat the roads and plan deployments more effectively. Each storm is different and the specific conditions shape how response unfolds. When officials asked residents to stay home in this most recent blizzard, they did. That gave more room for city crews to do the work of snow clearing without interference. Every neighborhood is different. Residents and property owners did a better job clearing sidewalks during this storm thanks to city enforcement. We operate under a compliance by enforcement model. Last storm, we worked closely with code enforcement to report non-compliant property owners in our district. That's never easy, but we knew if we let it slide the first time, compliance would begin to feel optional. This storm, the city did a better job communicating information and towing cars on main arteries.

Again, not something we want to do, but necessary for safety and the mobility of public safety professionals. That makes it easier for us to Plough curb to curb and remove snow banks where possible, an issue we heard about from residents on the first storm. Constituents have reached out less about the most recent storm and I take that as a win. I woke up to a thank you post from the Longwood Collective after the last storm about the job done in Longwood Medical Area. I'm grateful to neighbors and small businesses who stepped up to clear their sidewalks and support one another. After the last storm, many people saw just how much individual effort matters. There will always be opportunities for improvement. I see bike advocates here. I want to thank you for your advocacy. As someone who gets around multimodally, your advocacy is why I can travel on a bike. There will always be room for improvement. I know of the first storm. Councilor Breadon and I advocated for the clearing of the ComAv bike lane. Residents got involved when it wasn't plowed.

including the BU Urbanist and Boston Cyclist Union and I know before the most recent storm the administration met with those advocates and I really appreciate that. There will always be rooms for room for improvements. I want to highlight pedestrian pathways which are It takes partnership between the city and community to keep everyone safe. We know more snow is ahead and that kindness matters. My team and I were out shoveling crosswalks with ONS, something that I was sore for for days. It's not easy work. and I know that some of the crosswalks we shoveled or most of them were actually not the city's responsibility. But we know that putting boots on the ground matters. A constituent walked up to me on the sidewalk and said, you shouldn't be doing this. The city should. And I proudly proclaimed, we are. I'm your city councilor, and it's nice to meet you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Durkan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, everyone, for being here this afternoon. I'll keep my comments brief. I really feel that these past two storms have really challenged our systems in terms of ability to remove snow. We had two I would say record-breaking storms that were in the top 10 of snowstorms on record and I think what my experience with snow out in Alston Brighton was that It was very, very difficult. I did appreciate the fact that Public Works and the snow removal contractors were working 24-7 around the clock during the height of that storm just to keep ahead of it. And it was very, very difficult. So when we woke up, The next day after the storm, there was a lot of snow on the ground and the very, very deep cold temperatures didn't help either.

Very often if you have a big snowstorm and the temperatures go above freezing, the snow melts and it gets taken away. So I feel we have to be better at appreciating Anticipating the impacts of a storm, especially on our pedestrians and our multimodal transit systems, pedestrians and cyclists and folks who use mobility devices if they have a disability. And, you know, the reality is that the car, the roadways sort of have always historically taken priority and that always leaves the question, well, what about the curb cuts and the sidewalks? So I really do hope that we're really focused on solutions today, following as Councillor Pepén suggested, really think about The other thing that's really challenging I feel is that it's unpredictable.

We haven't had a big snow winter for five years or so. and then we have two blockbuster storms in a row within a week or two of each other. So I really feel what systems do we have that we can mobilize that are not necessarily Something that we have always, it's almost like a backup. The snow removal core is definitely an idea that we need to explore. I also want to give credit to those residents in our neighbourhoods that did mobilise and go out with shovels to clear pedestrian sidewalks and crosswalks and curb cuts voluntarily on their own volition. and digging out our fire hydrants as well is another very important thing that we need to do in our neighbourhood. So I look forward to the conversation and I want to thank Everyone for their interest in this. This is an issue that impacts everyone.

And we've certainly felt the impacts of Mother Nature these past two storms. Thank you.

Thank you, Council President. Councilor Mejia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to everyone who is here to demonstrate the power and the voices of the people. So I just want to say thank you. This is what it looks like when we create space for those who are most impacted. and are doing the work to actually have a seat at the table. And so I'm just encouraged by the turnout here. So this is what I want all the hearings to look like. So make sure you send that memo out. But I want to just start off by grounding that this is, in many ways, something that we all have personally experienced. I live in Dorchester. And like so many residents across Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale, and other neighborhoods, I've seen both the progress and the gaps in our snow response this winter. Main roads are often cleared quickly, but crosswalks, curb ramps, bus stops, and side streets can remain difficult and sometimes dangerous for days. This hearing is about gathering clear information

We've heard about large-scale daytime snow removal, thousands of truckloads hauled to snow farms, and new strategies following earlier criticism. And at the same time, residents have described being forced into the street Seniors worried about falling and confusion over who is responsible for sidewalks and corners. Today we are here to understand how decisions are made, how neighborhoods are prioritized, what resources are available, and what structural improvements May need to be made moving forward. And I'll just note that I just want to give a shout out to Akiki and the entire Akiki family. Enter this chamber. They have been such a strong partner with our office whenever there's an elder that needs support services during snow removals, they'll go out and shovel people literally out. And so I just want to thank

Elias and his entire team for being a support system to so many of our constituents, as well as some of the young people that have stepped up to go out into the streets with shovels. And while I do appreciate the city's response this time The second time was better. I think the whole idea is when we know better, we do better. So I just want to acknowledge the efforts that were made this go-round. But I would not be Councilor Mejia if I did not speak truth to power as I always do. The fact that we even have to have this hearing to talk about it speaks to so much more of the structural work that needs to be done. I love to see the Love Your Block concept when the city was out shoveling, but I also want to acknowledge that this responsibility should not be put in place on residents. We should Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mejia.

Reverend Culpepper, you're up next. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And I think, is that you Nick? Is Nick Grove here? Behind you. Behind you. Where's Nick?

He's next to me.

Thanks. Nick and I were on the phone at 1130 one night talking about Snow removal and some of the complaints that we had gotten. And so I had Nick and Danny on the phone whenever I, is Danny here? Let me just say the response between the first storm and the second storm was like Night and day. You know, I've only been here 60 days. I didn't know who Nick was. Nick didn't know who I was. I didn't know who Danny was. But I knew I had to call somebody to get the snow removed. and I came up with their names and their response after I got to know them for the second storm, it was just amazing. And I really appreciate how they responded I got calls back.

We got calls all day and all night. And I told folks that call me back if they haven't removed the snow. I didn't get one call back because they were on the case. So I really appreciate them. Good to see them in person. Good to put a face with a person that's really out there doing the work. I do think there's also a community component that we really need to discuss because I don't think the city should shovel our sidewalks. I think there's a certain Thank you. Thank you.

We can get some of the young folks, especially with this corp that you've been talking about, Councilor, to involve the community in ways that they really own these snowstorms. Because we can't put everything on the city. And I think if we work this partnership and discuss this partnership between the city and the community, we may be in the middle as liaisons, but I think we'll have snow removal in a way that will be a win-win for everyone. I do think those snow melting machines, I remember years ago, I remember Nino and I talked about, I thought we had some. But if we don't, we need to get them because what I've seen in New York, the way those snow melting machines work, I think when it comes to curb cuts, it makes

Everything much easier with regard to snow removal so I just think that we should look at this figure out with regard to schools I called Nick one night because I had a complaint about schools and Ask Nick who should be removing the snow from around the schools. He told me that that was BPS's responsibility. So I think part of it is a learning lesson for me and for all of us. We haven't had these kind of storms for quite some time. And I think now that these major blizzards are back, that we can begin to work and plow through ways to make it a win-win for everyone, especially when someone is challenged, when someone has disabilities that we make sure that access for them is available as it is to everyone else. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Reverend. Councilor Brian Worrell.

First and foremost, I just want to thank everyone for being here, to my colleagues who also put up hearing orders around this recent snowstorm and following recent storm storms. This hearing really comes down to accessibility for pedestrians and commuters and providing relief for our seniors and those with disabilities. I want to acknowledge That the city did do a better job last week following the storms than we did last month. And that Public Works has been giving a Herculean effort during these snowstorms. And I know every snowstorm is different, right? The first one spanned across, I believe, two days, and the other one, first is a few hours. So I know all the hours and time that goes into these snowstorms. And I just want to just shout out Danny Nee, Nick, Clarence Perkins, people who are very responsive. and do respond to calls and also to ONS as well.

I see Chief Malor in the building. I have suggested a volunteer snow corpse that matches volunteers with seniors. and those with disabilities to shovel their sidewalks, and also a seasonal workforce to shovel curbs, ramps, bus stops if the MBTA doesn't, and then schools, daycares, libraries and other public business corridors. We've seen this motto being adopted in Baltimore and also New York, and they have been proven to be successful, so looking to try to You know, do some coordination around that here in the city of Boston. And also, when it comes to the MBTA, there seems to be some sort of stalemate. thought that they were responsible for all the bus stops and commuter rail stations, but it seemed like there was some sort of stalemate in the last two storm storms. So just figuring that out to make sure who has responsibility.

So just looking forward to this conversation Looking forward to bolstering public works with any resources that they need, whether it's people power or technology or investments, but just making sure that we are more prepared for these snowstorms when they do come. Thank you.

Thank you, Council. Council, Ben Webber.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, just to pick up on I think what a couple of my colleagues have already said, we got a lot of phone calls and emails and text messages around snow removal. and I just want to thank Nick Gove and his people. Generally, things got responded to. I think where we weren't getting responses were on these sort of state properties like at MBTA stations. Sort of something that stuck out at least with the first snowstorm where we saw a delay in getting that snow removed. But I'm interested in hearing from advocates and from the administration to figure out what we can do better. As for, you know, we heard about snow melters. I think, you know, while we don't own many, I think we did rent them. And in terms of something that is

Do we want to spend money on equipment that we may never use again, or can we build up the capacity I'm interested in hearing what we can do that's a fiscally smart way of approaching this so we can respond quickly but maybe not build up equipment that we're not going to use over time. So I'm interested in that conversation. So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk, Chair, and I look forward to the hearing.

Thank you, Councillor. I received two letters of absence, one from City Councillor Louijeune one from District City Councilor Coletta Zapata. I will try to read most of this into the record. This is from City Councilor Louijeune. I regret to inform you that I'll be unable to attend today's City Council hearing. These dockets are critically important to residents' safety, mobility, quality of life, considering snow and ice conditions. disproportionately impact seniors, persons with disabilities, families with young children, residents without the physical or financial ability to clear sidewalks and access points on their own. I will thoroughly review the video hearing minutes and public testimony. The other one is from City Councilor Coletta Zapata. I would like to inform you that I will be absent from today's hearing. Regarding snow removal relief,

The creation of the snow core, purchase of use of snow melters. I want to note my appreciation for the city's decision to rent snow melters, which have already been deployed in District 1. Their use demonstrates the value of supplemental tools that can accelerate snow removal, improve pedestrian safety, improve accessibility. As someone who managed a district-wide snow angel program for years, Under my predecessor, I want to underscore that volunteer-based models alone are not sustainable without clear long-term incentive or compensation. I would welcome legislative work through our committees to evaluate these tools and advance a coordinated long-term snow removal, snow response strategy. Includes both operational resources, sustainability workforce models, My staff and I will be listening in and we'll review the hearing.

Can't let me read this letter into the record. So I read both letters into the record. I will try to give a brief opening statement and then I want to go directly to the Community Panel that is here. Following the first storm in January, I wrote to Mayor Wu and Chief Gove to thank our dedicated city employees who have worked hard under extremely difficult conditions, freezing temperatures. I also noted residents continue to provide feedback to city councilors, city officials on areas for improvement, difficulties navigating streets and sidewalks, limited accessibility. including our seniors, persons with disabilities, young families. Residents and small businesses reported difficulty of road accessibility for first responders including on Huntington Avenue

where they said an ambulance was unable to navigate the road and EMTs had to run down the street due to a lack of accessibility near Exeter Street. Many families contacted me on our snow, Emergency parking ban route and plowing as close as possible to the curb. Residents highlighted this issue and the inability to park cars following Removal of parking bans. Even though snow remained in the parking spots all along the street, some cars did return, such as on First Street, created a public safety issue as those parked cars were not near the double yellow line on a two-way truck route. Residents also reported difficulties at MBTA stops like Tremont Street. I know MBTA was discussed. I think it is the responsibility of both the city and the MBTA to shovel the area out.

It's both responsibilities. I'm thankful for the city's snow removal efforts and additional attention to areas of concern I highlighted. But I'm also respectfully asking the city to work closely with my office when it comes to helping to notify neighbors well in advance of those efforts. On February 4th, Chinatown neighbors reported being given two-hour notice to move their cars on Beach Street, Hudson Street, Tyler Street. In South Boston on G Street, neighbors reported that snow removal signs were posted around 6 p.m. and ticketing and towing began less than three hours later. With significant snowfall, It's critical that we explore purchasing this new equipment and other equipment that will help us deal with the snowstorm. Our panelists are here also. Thank you to them for joining us today.

to my friend Cassandra, Xavier, and Bill Taub for your fierce advocacy for persons with disabilities during these challenging times. These are civil rights issues. Lastly, I wrote again to Mayor Wu and Chief Gove to respectfully request that the city temporarily suspend concurrent phasing traffic signals in the days and weeks following significant snowstorms and snow removal operations in Boston. With so much snow, it's been very difficult to see around snow banks taller than the residents themselves. We can't have cars and pedestrians having the right of way at the same time, especially with limited visibility. I hope we can make this change immediately. As I mentioned, the advocates for the first panel are Bill Taub, who's a disability advocate, civil rights leader,

Cassandra Xavier, who's also a civil rights leader. I came across a video, powerful video on Facebook that I want to share with the audience now. I want to recognize Irene Motondo at MassLive for introducing me to Cassandra for the meaningful work you have done. Ethan, can you please start the video, please?

Practically in the street with cars passing by you when you shoreline. I'm out in the road with the cars. Dangerous.

This is the reality for Cassandra Xavier, a 36-year-old blind and deaf woman almost two weeks after a big snowstorm in Boston. She's lived in the city for most of her life and is a disability rights advocate. Since the snowstorm at the end of January, Cassandra says she's been mostly stuck inside due to uncleared, ice-covered sidewalks and snow banks blocking curb cuts, crosswalk buttons, and bus stops. She ventured out to meet with a Mass Life reporter in Jamaica Plain on Friday to show just how hard it is to maneuver the streets.

If I needed to get to that side of the street, I can't use the sidewalk to do that. And so what was going to happen is... I am going to end up having to shoreline which is very dangerous and shorelining is a term used by mobility instructors When they are training someone who is using a white cane further down the street to use another crosswalk. I'm out in the road with the cars. Dangerous. Still, this is not exactly clear enough. If I cannot perform a proper shoulder to shoulder sweep, which would be more like this to that width and length, like that distance. I am not, I'm still not safe. A wheelchair cannot get through here. A stroller can't get through here. A walker, a rollator cannot get through here properly.

I would like to invite the mayor and the governor to come experience the inconvenience. Not having things properly cleaned away as a pedestrian advocate with a dual sensory loss, this is really important. Sidewalk is how I maneuver to get to my destinations on a daily. and it really it robs me of my self-sufficiency.

Thank you, Ethan. At this time, I would like to introduce Bill Taub and Cassandra Xavier, ask them if they'd like to give a opening statement. Let me start with Cassandra. Cassandra, you have the floor.

Hi, everyone. It is great to finally be here with everyone to discuss this very important matter for everyone with and without a disability. This past, the very first storm that we've had from the very last time, you know, It was a very big storm and it was surprising. Yes, I will give them that. It was a surprising storm. And it just, you know, the lack of having things shoveled and the sidewalk access being completely absent, it just made me feel like my disabilities were not ever going to be seen as important

or Worth Anything, which is why we're here today to make sure that everyone has freedom to mobility. We're talking about having access to a clear sidewalk, the curb cuts. And when we advocate for these things, we're not complaining. We are asking for our basic right to be respected. Every single time. And to have to shoreline on the side of the street like that, with the feeling the wind of the cars going past my body, Or when the cars are at a standstill, feeling the heat come off of the cars onto my body should not be a thing, but it is, and it was. And

Just a nice kind reminder, no one is exempt from acquiring a disability at any point in their life. Many other communities can close their doors in your face, but the disability community has no doors to shut in anyone's face. We're open 24-7 all the time at any point. So... Just think about how it would feel if you suddenly acquired any sort of physical disability that required you to use a mobility device and it became your turn To have the same experience that someone in a wheelchair has to have, being stuck inside for two weeks because of a storm and the snow not being cleared away properly to avoid shorelining, which is what every mobility instructor for the blind does not ever want to hear their student having to do.

And I appreciate this opportunity to come and speak up, not only for myself, but along with the disability community and residents of Boston and beyond as a pedestrian advocate. Wow. Wow. And I'm really surprised and happy that this got the attention that it needed. So hopefully for next year, we could Definitely not have that happen again. Sidewalks to be cleared away, curb cuts wide enough for wheelchairs, rollators, and walkers to get through. or simply someone with physical challenges to be able to get through without stepping through street slush.

I still respectfully invite the mayor and the governor to come experience A blindness simulation. Right after the storm that's currently happening right now, possibly. And I'm done.

Thank you, Cassandra.

Thank you.

It's good to be with you, Cassandra. I also, before I recognize Bill, I also want to recognize an exceptional leader in the disability community, the Commissioner of Disability The Mayor's Commission on Disability Rights, Kristen McCosh, who's an outstanding civil rights leader in Massachusetts. I want to acknowledge Kristen McCosh, who does an outstanding job. Bill Taub. Why don't you introduce yourself, Bill, and you have the floor, Bill.

Good afternoon. My name is Bill Taub. I'm legally blind. I still have some vision. Thank you for inviting me to speak. And thank you for calling me a civil rights leader, because I never think of myself that way. When I received the opportunity to speak this afternoon, I started doing some research. and I've also come up with a solution for the entire city of Boston. That is called Snow Brigade for Financial Literacy and I will talk about it later. I found a company based in Canada called Trackless Vehicles. Everything is built in North America. Every supplier and vendor of that company is a North American company. Very interesting what they offer. It's interesting what's happened to Montreal.

Montreal has faced the same obstacles and 25% of their equipment is now inoperable. And yet, the city of Boston many years ago sent a team to Montreal to observe. And here it is. I lived in the South End in 1978, the blizzard. My roommate and I walked from the South End Union Park to the North End. We found a bakery open. We bought bread, walked back. It's now almost 40 years later and the city of Boston still hasn't figured it out. So, what are we gonna do about this as a city? I invite every city councilor, every mayor, the Mayor Wu, anybody else who wants to walk with me and Chrysandra through the neighborhoods and we will show you what it's really like to be a blind person. I'm going to describe myself for the blind community.

I'm a white male. I'm wearing a blue sweater, wearing brown pants, and khaki casual shoes. Guess what, folks? I walked from State Street down Washington Mall. There is stairs with frozen snow on them. City didn't do a good job right at City Hall. What's the problem? I'm not gonna be subtle about it, and I'm gonna be in your face. You knew you would do a better job. No excuses. My dentist is at 28 Corey Street in West Roxbury. I walked there recently to CVS which was at 1921 Center Street. I had a walk on Cory Street because snow banks and snow were not removed by the landlords. You can't count on the landlords to do this.

It's inconsistent. I watched a mother push a stroller on Cory Street because Cory Street was blocked. Shame on the city, shame on the landlords. And the landlord I'm gonna name, Planet Fitness. And when I walked up Center Street, it was a very narrow path. Shame on the city. I called 311. I hope they gave them a ticket. So, that's who I am. Many of the city councilors know me. And I'm also going to present something to every city council right now. You want to go to the National Braille Press and meet Brian and the President and CEO? Come and see me. I'll arrange it. City Council Flynn took advantage of that opportunity in December.

You want to go to the Carroll Center for the Blind where I'm going for six weeks to be a student? I'll talk to the president and the CEO. No problem. Mayor Wu, I've been trying to meet with you for almost a year. Your staff has never gotten back to me. Now it's public. You did not meet with an advocate for the disability community. So I welcome to tell you about the Snow Brigade for financial literacy later.

Thank you, Bill.

At this time, I'm going to ask my City Council colleagues if they would like to ask any questions. to the panelists and then we'll go to the next panel or we'll go to public testimony. Let me start with Councilor Pepén. I'm going to give each city councilor five minutes. Councilor Pepén, you're up.

Thank you, Chair Flynn. First of all, I thank you so much for your testimonies. Cassandra, I think I've had the opportunity to be on a walk with you on Hyde Park Avenue not too long ago with some of my council colleagues here. So I very much appreciate your advocacy on all transportation I don't necessarily have a question for you all I is more of an appreciation for you speaking up and bringing up your perspective to the City Council Chamber and being able to I mean, I saw that video before it was presented here today because it went viral, as you mentioned, Cassandra. So I just wanted to thank you for that. I think it's important for us to really take a step back sometimes and look at things from and experience things from your perspective. And I think that video spoke for itself. So I just, I know that my question is more about the responsibility of the landlords and all that stuff.

I'm going to ask the admin side, but I just wanted to thank you for being here. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Pepén. Let me go to Councilor Murphy. Councilor Murphy, you're up.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I also did see your viral video, and I think It's always important for people like myself who can only imagine what it's like for you to really show us and be out there on the streets reminding us how important it really is. and like you say it's not that you're wanting anything extra it's just basic that every resident needs different things but when we're clearing snow that what you were experiencing Wasn't needing something more than what we should do. You were highlighting where streets weren't shoveled as wide as we say they need to be or curb cuts weren't cleared like they should be. and you being forced into the street is just really scary.

The other morning last week I was pulling into the garage and because of the snowboarding event that was going on here, On City Hall Plaza that coming weekend, they had blocked the sidewalk and they had put snow more snow on the stairs and I don't know it was like perfect timing or not but I had to stop my car in the middle of Congress Street left my car door open because there was a blind man I saw firsthand what happens when Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you. I also want to thank Councilor Flynn for inviting you to be panelists, not just give public testimony. Even though public testimony is wonderful, it's important for us to start with you grounding us and why we're here and who we're advocating for. We're not advocating. Fortunately, like you said, one day I may need help, but right now I'm healthy. I can shovel out my own sidewalk and path. I have kids who can help me. we did our rounds and went by you know my aunt's house who's 85 and has a bus stop and several curb cuts on a corner busy street and my mom's and so not everyone has those

You know, resources and supports, but it's important that we advocate for those who, one, can't do it themselves, but also we also find out many times aren't even I don't even know who to ask for all right help and something that Councillor Culpepper new to this role not new to being an advocate in his community but realize right people are going to call you and you have to find out who's going to pick up the phone and help us fix this so No question, just thank you for reminding us why we do this work. Thank you, Councilor Flynn.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Councilor Henry Santana, you're up next. City Council President Breadon, you're up next.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Cassandra. Thank you, Bill, for being here. Your testimony and your video illustrates very clearly the challenges of folks with mobility issues and all of us, like as you mentioned, someone with a stroller has similar challenges. A parent pushing a double stroller, a double width stroller in the street a few weeks ago as well. Just in terms of utility and best practice, Cassandra, you mentioned that the width has to be like the 42-inch width so you can do your sweep with your cane. Do you have any other suggestions from your experience about what are the most challenging things and where are the most challenging spots? Either Bill or yourself could answer that question.

I'll let Bill answer that. The video, I believe, pretty much said everything on my end.

Thank you. Bill, have you any suggestions?

Yes, I do. It's called Snover Grade for Financial Literacy. Every resident who's 16 to 22 years old is eligible. The city's gonna pay them. No Amazon gift cards. The money goes into a savings account. My thought is the bank who manages it also has to contribute to the Snow Brigade. The company who's gonna get the contract for the shovels also has to contribute to the snow brigade. City year, the kids all get Outerwear Apparel, so will the Snow Brigade. The company that gets that also has to contribute to the Snow Brigade. The money, they can't withdraw the money. till they're 25 years old.

Then they'll learn compound interest. Now you're gonna ask, who's gonna teach? It's very interesting. There's a group of students at Latin Academy who started a foundation to teach financial literacy. They are all immigrant kids or first generation Americans from working families. The lowest CUME is 3.75. How did I meet them? I met him in front of Roach Brothers in West Roxbury when we were shopping one day. Amazing kids. They all want to go to college. Some of them would want to apply to New York University because they could go to school for free, 100% tuition. They'll help seniors, people with disabilities. Why not?

Snow Brigade for financial literacy. And when they're not doing that, They can go clean the sewers, the curb cutouts. Can you imagine what it's like for a blind person to have to be lifted over a snowbank? I have a friend, They did it too years ago. Gracious volunteers. Citywide, Snow Brigade for Financial Literacy. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And by the way, folks, It took me less than a half hour to come up with this. because a friend of mine who runs the, works on the Tax Healthy Solutions told me, last thing about me, I serve on the Age Strong Commission Senior Advisory Council.

I'm also part of the Disability Working Group for the Tax Healthy Cut Solutions and I am a Community Accessible Monitor certified by the Massachusetts Office on Disability. Snow Brigade for Financial Literacy. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Council President. And I also want to acknowledge the Important leadership and professional work of the Age Strong Commission and their exceptional leader, Emily Shea, as well. Councilor Mejia, you're up next.

Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you Bill and Cassandra for your testimony. When you speak from your heart, right, and you speak truth to power, that is when we hope. I see that the Boston Cyclist Union advocates are also in the building. And they're not here as panelists, but I'm sure they're here to do some public testimony, right? So we'll be hearing from them as well. And I'm curious, in terms of organizing, because what I've seen here as a community organizer myself is that oftentimes every group is fighting for their own group and we don't see real collaboration and opportunities for us to kind of build coalition. And I'm curious from your perspective,

Given the situation that we see here today, what opportunities exist to work with the Boston Cyclist Union and other multi-mobile advocates? In your experience, what would you say? What would that look like from an organizing standpoint?

I believe something like that would appear as A lot of us from each of those corners coming together collectively to discuss and share our point of views and come together with something solid and viable. I believe that is perfect teamwork so that we could move forward as activists in general, if that answers your question directly.

What I worry about here in the city of Boston is that we're usually pitting people against each other, so cars versus bikes, bikes versus everyone, there's always this sentiment here. And so when I see opportunities like this, I'd like to really dig in a little bit deeper around the opportunities that exist to unite people across their similarities, not so much their differences, because that's what really yields the type of power that we need in this moment. So I appreciate that answer.

Excellent. And one other thing is With the whole thing of people pitting, you know, the cars, going against the bicyclists. One thing to remind folks, we're all sharing the same road. When you get behind your wheel, whether it be a bike or a car, don't get into this bubble of thinking that the street is just yours only. It's a street. Everyone's on it. You have pedestrians, you have cars, buses, bikes, trucks. Just be mindful of the road. I hear the way they lean on the horn. As if the street was just for them only, let's stop that. One less horn honk at a time. Share the street. And what exactly is the rush? Where are you rushing to?

Because if you hit somebody, you're definitely not going where you're trying to go. Now you're really not going to get anywhere. Now you're stuck and you're going to somewhere other than your destination you were racing off to.

Thank you for that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know, and this is a public testimony that's going to be I don't know if they're here to lift up, but I just want to note that the Alston and Brighton Democratic Socialists of America stated that they cleared over 25 Crossing Islands, Curb Cuts, and Crosswalks spanning across eight locations in their neighborhood. and I just want to acknowledge that effort. Not sure if you all are here but while I have my mic I want to uplift your work and the labor that you've put in to protect our residents and one of the things that They commented here, and I'll use my time to uplift their voices, is that they were talking about they had to stand in that gap and to support Brighton.

and Alston because there was really no way to easily maneuver through the city and that this approach was reactive and inequitable and leaving its volunteers or private property owners is unsustainable and unreliable. The current system depends on something being blocked and immobilized, then reporting it, and then waiting. This is not how we treat motorists and motorist vehicle infrastructure. The assumption is always that the city will proactively clear The Roadway, cities like Rochester, New York provided municipal sidewalk, snow clearance during severe snowstorms and New York City has expanded emergency snow shovelers hiring to ensure enough hours are put into getting the job done. Surely Boston can do the same. So just in case they weren't here to read it, I wanted to use my time to uplift their voices. And so the work continues. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Reverend Culpepper. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Bill, I had a couple of questions for you. And one of them was that Snow...

Excuse me, the headset's not working, so it's difficult for me to hear him.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, thank you.

The Snow Brigade for Financial Literacy from Boston Latin. Was that the group that was led by Daniel Adamudia? You got it.

Who he's talking about, everybody in this room should meet Daniel. He's an incredible young man. You couldn't remember his name.

Yes, that's it, Daniel Adamudia.

He and his team... are phenomenal. So there's something else I gotta share with you. The city of Boston belongs to what's called the Open Mobility Foundation. It's a worldwide organization. It's all about open source technology to improve monitoring transportation. It's funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. If you don't know about it, check it out. Open Mobility Foundation. Now back to Daniel. He's an amazing young man. He had an internship at State Street Bank, and he wasn't sweeping the floors. He was working as part of the derivative team, way above my pay grade. Yeah, Reverend?

Yeah, thank you.

They all need to meet Daniel and his team.

I think everyone needs to meet Daniel because... Great young man. Bill, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Daniel.

Huh?

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Daniel. Daniel organized a group of young folks that knocked on more doors for me. And I know I'm not getting political. But he organized a group that knocked on more doors for me. These are high school students. They're not even voting age. Bill's talking about a young man that's not even voting age. And he knocked on more doors for me with his group Any adults in the campaign went to polls on election night until 8 o'clock. Daniel formed his own 501c3. Yep.

Think about this, a high school kid.

He's the President. Look, he just got an award as an MLK Scholar for $2,000. He sold that big check for the Martin Luther King breakfast. So when he talks about Daniel, he's talking about an amazing young man with regard to this noble grave for financial literacy. And, you know, So we'll talk more about that, how we can help Daniel really put this brigade together. The other thing I wanted to ask you was to talk a little bit about

I'm sorry?

The truckless or trackless vehicle.

It's the name of the company. You'll find it on the website. And all I did to do was punch in a couple things in Google. Bingo. Look at the City of Montreal's website. It's amazingly detailed. Yes, they got problems with their equipment, but they have a battle plan for every borough. City of Montreal's population is just over a million people. Here's the punchline. City of Montreal averages 75 inches of snow every year. Every year. What an interesting statistic that I learned. Montreal to Quebec is 157 miles. They remove snow 40 times 157 miles.

That's over 8,620 miles of snow every year. Boston's got it easy. So, Reverend, Happy to talk to you about Daniel and his group because they can put it together and it won't take them a year to do it. So thank you very much once again.

And final thing for you Bill, The trip that you took, Councillor Flynn, on? I'm sorry? The trip that you were talking about. The trip. Was that the trip up to Canada?

No, I haven't been to Montreal since 1967. When I went to the World's Fair, and I went down, remind me, we went down an alley. The bus, the walls were on either side. They have a plan to remove the snow from the alleys. It's all part of their plan. 75 inches of snow every year.

Did you say you took a trip, Councilor Flynn?

Yep, talk to. Where was that trip? Ah, may, city council may talk about it?

Yeah. I mean, I wanna go, maybe I should go on that trip too.

National Burrell Press is on St. Stephen's Street off of Huntington Avenue. I arranged for City Councilor Flynn to meet the President and the CEO. and take a tour of the National Imperial Press. Any other city council want to come? I'll talk to Brian and we'll arrange it.

I want you to talk to Brian. I want to go on that trip too.

You wanna go to the Carroll Center for the Blind? And learn what it's like to learn to be a blind person? Absolutely, absolutely. Cassandra and I have been there.

Oh, yes. I was a student there many years ago. Also, would you like to walk across Causeway and Portland Street? Yeah. Thank you. Under Sleep Shades, too.

Oh, God.

I have problems doing it. And I...

Thank you for reminding me of the panic when I was there in December and they put the sleep shades on me. I had a meltdown.

Well, thank you, Reverend.

Thank you for indulging me.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Reverend Culpepper.

Thanks a bunch.

And Reverend Culpepper, maybe sometime in May or April and May, We could try to get a group visit to the National Braille Institute Press and we could work with Bill and Cassandra and love to do a tour there with some of our colleagues. I was really serious about that.

Let's do it. Thank you.

It's an excellent opportunity. City Councilor Brian Worrell, you're up.

Thank you chair and thank you to the panel for your advocacy. The video was very powerful and just also want to just thank Bill for coming up with a A very creative idea that I am behind on making sure that we are doing more to Get more people to help shovel out our crosswalks, our business districts, our sidewalks just in general. Just knowing that so many people need to use our sidewalks to You know, go shopping, just go about their day. So thank you for the powerful video. Thank you for your advocacy. Count me in to the trip. Happy to join and I was able to meet Daniel I think it was last week or the week before at the city championship where the Holland Tech right in my district won the city championship.

So Daniel's a great guy, and I think that all of us speaking about him just increased his stock even higher. But thank you again for your advocacy and looking forward to working with you to provide more resources to make sure that everyone, you know, Whether you have a mobility disability or a stroller, those sidewalks are clear and accessible. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. Next up for a minute and a half is Councilor Weber. Councilor Weber.

Thank you very much, Chair. Time moves faster for me, I know. Cassandra and Bill, thank you for coming. It's been 15 years, 16 years since the Supreme Judicial Court in the Papadopoulos case sort of made You know, these landlords and property owners liable for injuries that happen on the sidewalk when they don't remove the snow. Cassandra, you appear to be a lot younger. So Bill, I don't know if you have any thoughts on, have things improved at all since that decision? Going back, you mentioned 1978. when those requirements weren't there. But do you... Cassandra, feel free to comment also. Sorry.

I'm not familiar with the legislation you're talking about.

Yeah, so in 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court made private property owners liable for injuries that took place on the sidewalks in front of their property. So that basically created this requirement for folks to shovel the sidewalks in front of their property. Holmes. So I'm just asking if things are better, worse, no different since then. Cassandra has her hand up, sorry.

I would say still hold them accountable Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Both should come together to do that. No finger pointing, no pitting against one another, both.

Yeah, yeah, and so the reason why I ask Bill is... I agree. Okay, is because there's also, there's an Americans with Disabilities Act. There have been cases in other places around snow removal, and I think the cities still have an obligation to make sure people have access to those public spaces. Bill, you have your hand up.

Part of the problem for the city of Boston is It's complicated. You got to figure out who's responsible for what. You got the federal government, the state government, you got the city government, you got the MBTA, you got property owners. and you even got the Mass Turnpike. And I'll give you an example real fast. You walk up the Back Bay Communal Rail Station, you turn right, go down Stewart Street, at the intersection of Dartmouth Street and Stewart Street, I watched a mother push a child up in a wheelchair up Stewart Street because there was no curb cutout. I called. Turns out the mass turnpike is responsible for that intersection. So you gotta figure out who owns what, who's responsible, and I know Commissioner McCosh and her team are doing a great work to figure that out. Think about it, one curb, cut out.

Mass Turnpike, I was told by a consultant because there was a lawsuit about that intersection. So we can't, as Christina said, point fingers. We gotta figure out who owns what. Come up with a plan, coordinate it, and move forward. Fast. Shouldn't take 15 years for the city to do it.

Okay, well, thank you very much, Cassandra and Bill. I really appreciate you being here and the chance to talk to you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Weber. I remember maybe four years ago, six years ago, there was a gentleman who was blind. His name was Alex Gray, and I know Councilor Pepén knows him. He ran for city council and he asked all the candidates for city council and for the city council as themselves to meet him at City Hall Plaza, the stairs. And I was there, Councilor Wu at the time, and Councilor Andrea Campbell, and I think Councilor Presley, and several others. And And we went down the stairs without any vision.

And we put ourselves in the steps of Alex. And why I brought that up Just now, I think of this issue as a civil rights issue. And we don't have the luxury to pick and choose. It's a federal issue. It's a federal civil rights issue. Disability rights are civil rights. When we put snow on the crosswalks and it stays there in a pile of snow, It's blocking access for persons with disabilities. It's blocking access for seniors. It's blocking access for little kids trying to get to school or people trying to Navigate the crosswalk.

Not only the crosswalk, but next to the crosswalk, as you know, is the ramp for someone with the wheelchair. That's why I take this issue very seriously. I saw a person, several people actually, in my neighborhood of South Boston, an older person in a wheelchair. The person was 60 or 70 years old. The person couldn't get down the street On the sidewalk, rather, and the person was in the wheelchair having to go up to Broadway in a wheelchair on the street because the sidewalks weren't clear. The person couldn't use the crosswalks because there was huge snow piles there. Elderly people, I saw an elderly person try to climb up

The pile of snow to stay in the crosswalk and then walk down. Or what is the other option is go into the middle of the street. Both scenarios are dangerous. These are civil rights issues. We can't pick and choose as I said. I had the opportunity to have lunch a month ago with Cassandra and really an opportunity to listen to her talk about Her experience as a person with disability. And I judge how Boston does on snow removal based on How it impacts persons with disabilities. That's how I judge it. I judge it on how seniors are able to get around. They might need to go to the pharmacy. They might need to go to the store to buy milk.

and many more. These roads and sidewalks Again, disability rights are civil rights. That's my top issue on the city council is making sure that persons with disabilities and our seniors are treated with respect and dignity. Not only is it the right thing to do, it's the law. And we don't have the option to pick and choose which federal laws we want to abide by. Before I end, I just want to give Cassandra an opportunity to comment or finish weighing in on this topic, but I do want to say to Cassandra and to Bill, let me start with Cassandra, Thank you for your strong advocacy for persons with disabilities.

It's not about, I listened to you closely, you said to me, hey Ed, it's not about me, it's about advocating for other people with disabilities. making sure that they're able to navigate the sidewalk or the crosswalk. So I admire you Cassandra for your resilience but also for your advocacy on persons with disability issues.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And it's a great idea. It's a great plan to make sure that the city is in compliance with the ADA to make sure everyone can navigate safely. The streets and the sidewalks belong to everyone. And that's my final thought with that. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Cassandra. Thank you, Bill. I also want to say I think the ADA, Americans with Disability Act, is the best federal legislation, one of the best, I should say. that's ever been enacted on civil rights related issues. More work we can do in support of persons with disabilities. It's about working together, respecting each other, and thank you to the wonderful panel for your testimony today. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. and I'll leave you with this. 10 years ago I was diagnosed with macular degeneration. Turns out my disability has become a gift. It's amazing the people who work and the Community for the Disability. And they need to be thanked. I'm new to the party.

Thank you. Well, thank you Bill. Thank you Cassandra. And I wanted you both to go first. Because I wanted you to tell your life story and for us as city officials to listen to you. And us listening to you makes us better city officials, city councilors, elected officials, and hopefully When we decide policy, we'll consider the impact it has on persons with disabilities. So thank you, Cassandra. Thank you, Bill. I would like to call the next. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ma'am. I would like to call the next panel that would like to testify from the City of Boston. You can stay there, but you can also, I can help you get a more comfortable seat if that works best for you. Do you want to stay there?

Okay, okay. Okay, okay. So let me ask Nick Gove, who's the Chief of Streets, Kristen McCosh, who's the Commissioner of Disability Commission, Emily Shea is the Commissioner of Age Strong. Brianna Malaw, Community Engagement.

Would you have someone come up and sit?

Thank you. Sorry for the one minute delay. We're just helping arrange the chairs here for the next panel. As I mentioned, the next panel includes Nick Gove, Chief of Streets, Brianna Malua, Community Engagement Cabinet, Christa McCosh, Disabilities Commission, Emily Shea, Age Strong. I want to give the city administration the opportunity to make an opening statement. Whoever would like to go first.

Thank you, Councilor. So good afternoon. My name is Nick Gove. I'm the Interim Chief of Streets for the City of Boston. As of today, March 3rd, the City of Boston has received 61.6 inches of snow this winter. The majority of the precipitation came from two historic events. On January 25th and 26th, the City of Boston received 23.2 inches of snow Over a 36-hour period, the eighth largest snowstorm on record. The lack of recovery temperatures and sustained sub-freezing conditions made post-storm cleanup challenging. For example, the Boston Water Sewer Commission responded 29 water main breaks and service leaks across the city between January 25th and February 6th. On February 23rd during the blizzard of 2026, Boston receives 17 inches of snow

at Logan Airport, while neighborhoods in the southwest part of the city saw higher snowfall totals. While this was a significant event, temperatures rose above freezing last week, and longer sunny days allowed more time for snow to melt. Managing snow and ice is a critical core city service that supports public safety, transportation and our economy. This work is a year-round effort that requires planning and due diligence to ensure personnel, resources and equipment are prepared for the October 15th to April 15th season here in Boston. For example, the logistics of building and managing an inventory and supply chain for salt starts in July. We have capacity to store approximately 44,000 tons of salt. This season, we've had 110,000 tons delivered, almost 3,700 truckloads, and we've deployed 115,000 tons of salt in our streets.

As of today, we have approximately 28,000 tons in our inventory. Despite some false rumors that circulated during the blizzard, we never ran out of salt, nor were we ever at risk of doing so. At our lowest point, we had about 18,000 tons of salt on hand. Monitoring weather and roadway temperatures becomes a 24-7 responsibility for our leadership team. In addition to the National Weather Service forecast, the city has two paid providers that supply us with customized Detailed weather forecasts and information. In advance of winter storms, we use this information to make decisions around how many pieces of equipment we will need, when and where to deploy them. If it's a major storm, we're making decisions around whether to cancel school, implement a snow emergency and parking ban, or delay the collection of curbside trash and recycling.

Every winter storm is different and presents a unique set of challenges. For example, a six inch snowstorm overnight on a Saturday into a Sunday can be easier to manage than a flash freeze before a Thursday morning commute. The nature of this work requires our team to adapt and be nimble to ever-changing conditions. When problems arise, we work the problem in real time until we have a solution. During winter storm activations, the Public Works team and our contracted partners work to maintain over 800 miles of roadway. We start by putting down salt. Priority is given to hills, bridges, and main thoroughfares. before moving into neighborhoods. If we are forecasting a plowable event, we pre-treat as close to the start of snowfall as possible in order to build an effective brine to prevent snow from adhering to the roadway surface.

When snowfall rates exceed an inch an hour, we move into plowing only and pause the use of salt in order to conserve supply. When we see snowfall rates of two plus inches an hour, We prioritize plowing our snow arteries for emergency vehicles, sanitation trucks, and MBTA buses so essential services can operate with minimal delay. This approach is critical in major storms. One vehicle stuck on a hill or highway ramp can have cascading consequences, as we saw in parts of the Commonwealth last week. Once heavy snowfall subsides, we move into pushing back to the curb. If we've closed schools, our first priority working with our partners at BPS is to reopen them. This includes making sure there is sufficient access for buses in and out of school zones, as well as ensuring pickup and drop off areas are clear and accessible.

Next, we begin removing snow from main thoroughfares, business districts, transit hubs, as well as crosswalks, curb cuts and median crossings, and bike lanes. After major events, this work can continue for days and sometimes weeks. So far this year, we've removed over 10,000 truckloads of snow from city of Boston streets, equaling approximately 170,000 cubic yards. This snow is hauled to snow farms across the city. We had 14 at one time. To manage these snow farms and ensure we have space for future events, we have contracted and deployed four snow melters. Snow melters have been a tool in our toolkit for the last 11 years since our first significant deployment in 2015 and subsequent use in the March of 2018 storms and the blizzard of 2022. While we recognize the value of these assets

The efficiency of their deployment in the urban environment is best when they can run for at least a six to eight hour period. Hourly costs to rent and operate these assets, including fuel costs, range from $2,500 to $4,800 an hour. The Boston Police Department, Boston Transportation Department, and Code Enforcement Team also play a significant role in major winter storms. So far this winter, BPD and BTD have issued 6,892 snow emergency parking violations and towed 1,607 vehicles. As of this morning, code enforcement has issued 5,870 snow removal violations citywide this season. For comparison, we issued over 4,300 violations following the January storm and less than 1,500 following the blizzard last week. Another example of the post-storm conditions following each event.

Despite challenging conditions this winter, curbside trash and recycling collection has continued citywide with limited service impacts. Over 3,500 tons of trash and recycling was collected curbside last week and the week following the January storm, only marginally less than an average holiday week collection schedule. And while the number of missed trash cases reported to 311 was higher than average those two weeks, 90% of those cases were resolved within 24 hours. In conclusion, I want to thank all our residents, property owners, and commercial and institutional partners for their support in clearing snow throughout the winter. I also want to thank our public and private partners who hosted snow farms for us this winter. I also want to thank our sanitation workers. Their work is hard every day, but the last month has been extreme. And lastly and most importantly,

I want to thank our city employees and contractors who have worked tirelessly over the last five weeks. Once again, you put everything in your own lives on hold to keep the city safe and moving. The city is very fortunate to have the professional, experienced, and dedicated snow and ice team we do. We owe you all a debt of gratitude. Thank you and I will hand it over to Commissioner McCosh.

Thank you, Chief. Good afternoon, Chair Flynn and other City Councillors. I'd like to thank you for inviting me to testify here today. In my role as the City of Boston Disability Commissioner and ADA Title II Coordinator, I lead the city's collective efforts towards accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities. The city puts a tremendous amount of work into ADA compliance. It's an all-of-government approach, and we work on this as a systemic issue. A big piece of my work on ADA Title II compliance is related to Boston's public rights of way. These are streets, sidewalks, intersections, and crosswalks. My department always prioritizes pedestrian paths of travel because we know everyone uses the sidewalks. Residents, commuters, tourists, people of all ages and abilities. It's the universal way Bostonians travel around the city.

I often say that the City of Boston has a lot of built-in challenges because we're an old city, we're a crowded city, and we're a winter city. Snow removal is one of our biggest and most difficult issues to address every year, especially in terms of accessibility, because we know storms are unpredictable. Snow clearance and removal is labor-intensive, expensive, Time-consuming and there are limited places to put snow. The city relies on residents, businesses, and others to do their part. So in some ways we have less control than we would like. Creating a clear path of travel for people with disabilities requires attention to detail. We need bare pavement and we need paths that are wide enough for wheelchairs and other mobility device users. For the winter of 2026, it's only a few months old, but it feels like it's been forever. But I really want to acknowledge the hard work of Chief Gove and his staff and the incredible job that the Public Works Department does.

I have a very good relationship with the streets team, and we stay in constant communication during storms. After four years with little snowfall, this winter had two huge snowstorms, as Chief Gove said. that resulted in feet of snow with very little melting. The main issues that we heard about from residents were blocked curb ramps, blocked parking spaces, and plows that created huge snow mounds at the curbs. The way my department works on snow is, number one, we coordinate with the Public Works Department. We work with 311. We do information and referral for residents, and we also help with messaging and clarifying responsibilities. As Bill Taub mentioned earlier, there are several different people who are responsible for removing snow on city sidewalks.

Private residents, city departments, businesses, management companies, federal and state government, there are a lot of people to coordinate with. And I just want to say too that this is not a new issue. We've known about this for a long time, and we've actually worked on it for a long time. In my role as commissioner, which is 15 years now, I've been involved in several efforts to try to create It may seem like a simple straightforward solution, but it really isn't. It's not that we can't do it, but it just takes a lot of work to think it through. Previous efforts I've been involved with, I've worked with Age Strong and Commissioner Shea. We've worked with the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, the Boston Centers for Youth and Families. We've worked with local agencies like the Labouret Center in South Boston. And there are a lot of challenges. The reality is that there's not one simple fix.

It would take a substantial budget and staff. We'd have to figure out who qualifies for assistance. Is it everybody over 60 or only people who have the financial need? People with disabilities, do we verify disability or do we just take people's word? This would include documentation, verification, a lot of paperwork. There are legal issues, liability. We'd have to have people sign waivers. Do we do Cori and Sori checks? Finding volunteers and staff is very difficult. You'd have to figure out scheduling, distributing equipment, shovels. Do we buy shovels? Do we have residents bring shovels? All this to say is there's a lot to it. My office did collaborate with the Age Strong Department for the last three years on a pilot snow core program. This was run through the power core office of the city of Boston.

And what we did was we identified age-strong identified residents and I identified residents who had disabilities and who were older adults who needed assistance. This was very time consuming for our staff. And we only did 10 addresses and two neighborhoods the first year. We did 29 addresses and two neighborhoods the second year. Unfortunately for us, there wasn't much snow, so we didn't get to deploy them or find much data. But a few things that we did learn were that many times, by the time the snow core got out to shovel people, The sidewalks had already been cleared. So a lot of times people do figure it out. I know it's difficult and challenging and expensive, but we do always advise people to consider it as an expense of home ownership. Like other maintenance costs. And we know people's circumstances change. Their financial, personal budgets can change.

Their living situations change with different people who may be available to help shovel. But with the light snowfall, we really weren't able to collect much data on snow core, but we did realize that it's not a scalable program because there's only 15 staff in power core. In order to shovel out Any type of program, it would be hundreds of staff. And volunteers have really found to be meeting well, but not always reliable because it's a lot of work. They may come out once or twice, but it's very difficult to keep them coming back. So in conclusion, I will just say that we are very glad to be here for this discussion. We'd love to share our historical experience with what we've done. We'd love to see some sort of solution on where the city can help. But we know it's going to be a big effort in all ways. And I will wrap up with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Nick. I do want to ask my colleagues to For question and answering, because we have over 20 people that want to testify. So I'm going to ask my colleagues I'm gonna ask my colleagues if they could keep their testimony, I mean, Q&A to four minutes. I know that's not all that much time, but I think that might work. Let me start with Councilor Pepén. Councilor Pepén?

I'm going to take a little bit of public testimony at this time. I'm going to do my best. I don't necessarily have any type of order, but I'm going to try to mix it up if I can. and try to be fair to as many people as I possibly can. If I call your name, can you please come down to the microphone on the left or the microphone on the right? Maha from the Livable Streets Alliance. Jill from the Carroll Center. Is Jill here? Hi, Jill.

Nephew. Nephew now said, please come down. And Boston Cyclist Union, Zachary. Why don't you come down too, please? I'm gonna take these people and then I'm going to try to get back to the Q&A from city council colleagues. because I do know that they want to ask some questions about the community service program for a snow removal and community engagement. So if you could please walk up to the microphone. and say your name please, your neighborhood and organization.

Hi, my name is Maha, and I'm here on behalf of Livable Streets Alliance, and I'm a resident of JP. We are a small nonprofit. We work in the multimodal space, and We want to make Boston's streets more safer, accessible, and equitable. I'm also a resident of Boston and a bus rider, so this is super personal to me as well. This winter, Boston was hit by two very intense storms in quick succession. While a lot of the main roads got swiped, A lot of the residents we heard from, especially older folks, people with disabilities, they had a really tough time navigating the streets because as much as the streets were being cleared, our sidewalks were getting ignored or there was like a lack of system and how they were being cleared. And this is not just an inconvenience for our residents, it is very, very unsafe for a lot of people as we've heard so many testimonies today.

Fortunately for us, there are so many cities that get so much snow and we can learn from them and have very, very cost-effective solutions that can be implemented very quickly. and somebody mentioned Montreal. I would also like to mention Minneapolis. They have a lot of publicly available, really good data that we can use and draw lessons from. One thing that I think was very, very lacking was that Boston does not have a system of prioritization when it comes to what streets, what sidewalks, what bus stops, Why, which ones are we prioritizing and why? This should be like a public facing thing because we need a very data driven approach to this. We need to know which neighborhoods have older folks. We need to know which neighborhoods have the most transit-dependent people. We need to understand where does it make sense for us to use our resources more effectively. So a system of prioritization is the least Boston can do, and I think it's a very cost-effective solution.

The second thing that I will say is Boston should definitely have New York. It was super successful. 1500 people signed up for it. We should definitely have that. And lastly, I would say we should have an accountability system. This hearing is amazing. We're going to hear a lot of ideas. but then let's also have a follow-up hearing to see where those ideas went. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Yep, you're up next. Could you say your name, your neighborhood, and what organization, please?

My name is Nathu Neshad. I'm with Alston Bright and Democratic Socialists of America. And one week ago from 5 p.m. on Monday the 23rd until 7 p.m. Tuesday the 24th, 23 members of Alston Bright and DSA cleared over 25 medians, crossing islands, curb cuts, and crosswalks. This work was completed in only four one-hour shifts in Union Square, Oak Square, Brighton Center, Packard's Corner, and along Commonwealth Avenue at Griggs Street, Harvard Ave, Spofford Road, Warren Street, and Washington Street. This was not a city operation. Instead, it was led by and carried out by average people in AB with plastic shovels fueled by Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate, not sponsored. Over 36 people hours of work. We organized this because after past storms, the system failed.

Days, sometimes even weeks, snow was left there in droves, and I really should not have to slog through a foot of snow just to reach the 57 bus, and no one should. Safe mobility is a basic right for pedestrians, yet the current system treats it as an afterthought. The roadways of our major streets are cleared immediately, while crucial pedestrian infrastructure is left to private property owners and falls into gray areas between city and MBTA responsibility. When this happens, you fail. Seniors, disabled residents, parents with strollers, delivery workers, and anyone without a car, which is about 40% of AB residents. because they all lose access to maneuver their neighborhood. This approach is reactive and inequitable and relying on volunteers like us and private property owners is unsustainable and unreliable.

Cities like Rochester, New York provide municipal sidewalk snow clearance during severe storms, and New York City has expanded emergency snow shoveler hiring. Surely Boston can do the same. The work we did last week was meaningful to many of our neighbors and also made people wonder if 23 volunteers can do this work with less than 24 hours of organizing, imagine what the city could accomplish. On Thursday, at our monthly meeting at Oak Square, our neighborhood group approved, with a vote of 30-0, a resolution that calls on City Council and the administration of Mayor Wu to prioritize pedestrian mobility during snow events. A copy of this resolution has been submitted to the council and I'm looking forward to the day that I can come and shovel and know that the city has already beaten us to it.

Thank you. Could you introduce yourself and your neighborhood and organization, please?

Sure. My name is Jill Suarez, and I'm a community-based orientation mobility instructor from the Carroll Center for the Blind. I don't live in Boston, but I work with residents in all the different neighborhoods of Boston. I wanted to highlight just a few of the areas that I feel are being overlooked in regards to snow removal. One of them is the issue of the complex streets with safety islands and median strips. Usually the crosswalks on both sides of the street are shoveled out, but many times over the past couple of months when I'm working with my students, I'm finding that the cut-throughs for the medians or the safety islands are not shoveled out either at all or very incompletely so that people cannot pass safely over them.

I frequently go to the 311 website and I report issues. One of the problems that I have is sometimes I know that the city of Boston is not responsible for a particular street It's either the Mass Pike or the Department of Conservation and Recreation, or it's the Highway Department. But as a regular citizen, I don't know who, has jurisdiction over what intersection. So I put in the request to have something addressed and then nothing happens because it isn't the city. So I would love if there would be a link on the website to redirect me so that I know who to complain to. Another thing is I did really want to bring up the issue of the concurrent walk lights. I'm glad you really mentioned it. I am very concerned about the fact that the snow banks are so high. And when my clients who are blind, they do not know

Where the edge of the snowbank is necessarily, they can't walk up far enough. And a couple of times I've had to stop my students from getting hit by a turning car who cannot see us around the snowbank. So I do definitely want to advocate for that change. Until the snowbanks come down and level, please don't allow concurrent walk light phases. The last thing I just wanted to mention was bus stops. For the most part, I find that the city or the MBTA is pretty good about shoveling them out, but where they seem to overlook them, Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Zachary Yarrow. I'm a volunteer with the Boston Cyclist Union and the Boston Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby. I'm taking time off work to come to this because we saw deprioritization of micromobility lanes, bus stops, and curb cuts after the first storm, and I saw my friends and fellow Volvo Road users take time off work to clear snow that the city didn't. I was glad to see improved snow clearing after this storm, but Enforcement didn't really improve. Businesses still shoveled snow into micromobility lanes, didn't get ticketed. Vehicles were still, instead of shoveling out parking spaces, parking in micromobility lanes. and drivers were being permitted to do that because 311 was marking those segments as all clear when they were still filled with vehicles.

And there were, I rode in here from Alston, where Western Ave, Comm Ave, there are still bike lanes blocked with snow that a bike can't get through. I like that I can walk and bike and take transit in Boston instead of having to drive everywhere, but between this and the year-long pause on safety improvements, On streets where people have been killed, like Cambridge Street in Alston or Hyde Park Ave in JP, give me the impression that the city wants me off my feet, off my bike, and in my car. if I want to get around many parts of Boston. So I'm joining many of my fellow vulnerable road users here calling for winter maintenance plans that ensure equitable and safe access to the city for people outside personal automobiles.

like clear, enforceable, and enforced standards for maintaining sidewalks, transit stops, and micromobility lane access, ensuring plowing doesn't block access to curb ramps, to bus stops, and T stations, and Micromobility Lanes, and also using the winter months to make progress on pedestrian and public transit and micromobility infrastructure projects so that During next construction season, we can continue to make progress on our Vision Zero goals. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I want to get back to my colleagues and give them an opportunity to to ask questions because they had specific questions they wanted to ask the administration. Let me go to Councilor Orrell. Councilor Orrell. I might go out of order a little bit, so I do apologize. I'm just trying to be respectful to everybody.

Thank you, Chair. Just a few questions. How many snow farms? I know removal, for me, seems to be one of the biggest hurdles that we have to clear. We do a good job of plowing the streets, but when we push it up against the side, that's where the accessibility and the mobility issues I heard the mayor say that it's not typical for us to I have a parking ban that expands more than one day. Is that a policy that we're looking to implement in the future? So snow farms, parking bans, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks, Councilor. At our peak, we had 14 snow farms going. That number, they come online and offline as they get full and we have to move the melters around to make room, but At our peak of hauling, we had 14 snow farms across the city. As far as the parking bans are concerned, in the first event in January, We lifted the parking ban on Monday evening based on the forecast of we were going to receive maybe an extra inch of snow. Unfortunately, we got almost five and a half inches that Monday night. If I could go back again, I would have absolutely extended that snowman into that following day. That would have been very helpful for the operation. This last event, same thing. We did extend it. We had a better handle on the forecast.

We didn't get that extra snow at the end of the event. and we do believe that both at the front end of that parking van as well as after, it allowed us to push back to the curb better.

Then when it comes to equipment, plowing, I feel like everyone has a plow attached to the front of their pickup truck, but removal, the equipment is different. You have to get it up and over. Do we have enough equipment to effectively do snow removal or do you think that that's an area that's needed for more investment?

Yeah, we're fortunate we do have a good inventory of snow removal equipment. We supplement that with contracted resources and we're fortunate to have those. The trackless units that were mentioned by Bill earlier in the earlier panel. The city actually owns 16 of those units. Public Works owns 10 of them. And the Parks Department owns six. So yeah, we feel confident in our equipment that's available for us.

And then you gave a number on the amount of snow that was moved. What was that number again?

It was over 10,000 truckloads. It was estimated at 170,000 cubic yards.

And that was removed in the course of the month or...

Yeah, following the storm in January up till last week. So those numbers are updated as of yesterday. Got it. And do you know how much you removed on a daily basis? It varied. I mean, we had nights, we were, you know, a couple nights we pushed almost 1,000 truckloads. So, yeah, it really depended upon where we were.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is the capacity in terms of the contracts and the equipment to kind of see if there's any way to remove more in a shorter period of time. Remove that amount in a lesser period of time through investing in equipment. And my last question is, this is based off of the last panel, do we fine landlords for The width or just the clearing in front of their house?

We find property owners for failing to clear snow. We find them for not appropriate width. We also find during events, we find people that we catch plowing or throwing snow into the street. There's a number of violations. What about ice? Yes, ice as well. If you haven't cleared and your sidewalk is frozen over, yeah, we'll issue for that as well. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. Let me go to Councillor Pepén. Councillor Pepén, you're next.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for being here and to the other commissioners for taking the time to be panelists here. Look outside, it's snowing. So I know that your team is going to be busy today. A quick shout out to John Romano, Dustin, and Clarence, and Freddie. They took care of my district. So whenever I reach out, they've been helpful. My hearing order was more specific towards the creation of a snow corpse or seasonal workers. Obviously, we saw what New York City was able to implement. There was a lot of excitement behind that. There was a lot of people that signed up for it. What we saw was just seasonal workers shoveling sidewalks that maybe wouldn't have been done if it weren't for that. I represent a district that is older in population. It's more residential. It's further away from downtown Boston, so a lot of this A lot of residents reach out to me asking for support, which is why we did the volunteer thing in my office. I wanted to know how we explore that idea in the city of Boston.

Are we looking to get some of what New York City is doing or other municipalities and how are we thinking about potentially bringing that here?

Sure, and as Commissioner McCosh mentioned, there has been several historic efforts to start, and we have implemented those types of programs. I don't think we're prepared to really We haven't had time to really look into and what a new version of that looks like.

Okay. And my office is looking into what New York City did. Obviously, they are a much bigger city. But I think that if we were to learn a little bit about what they did on a smaller scale, perhaps maybe we can implement it here. Moving forward, and obviously, knock on wood, hopefully we don't get more, another blizzard or storm this year, but I think it's an idea worth exploring. Okay, in regards to Crosswalks, who's responsible for shoveling crosswalks? Because I have seen several situations where, you know, sometimes maybe they're in front of a business or they're in front of somewhere where there isn't anything, like who's responsible for that clearance?

Sure, so the curb cuts that access crosswalks are the responsibility of the abutting property owner, whether that be a residence, commercial property owner, etc. That said, The city has begun to do more work around clearing out crosswalks and curb cuts, particularly in events like these two storms, because we recognize that that's a significant burden. for a property owner to take on. So that is something that we've done more of this year, I think, than any other time, and it's something that we'll continue to work on. and I think formalize in a plan moving forward.

Thank you for that. And a little bit similar to that, but more towards sidewalks. I represent a portion of the city where there's a lot of sidewalks where there isn't necessarily A little bit outside of my district, maybe closer to Councilor Worrell's district on American Legion where there's just There's between the Brooks School and the Plaza and they're just long stretch and that wasn't so like who's responsible for those type of sidewalks?

I think Council, moving forward, those are exactly the type of locations that don't have an immediate abutter that the city would look to potentially take care of. We have somewhat of a... Existing, you know, program for this for bridges in the city following transportation reform many years ago. The city, MassDOT, and the MBTA got together and we geographically decided who was going to be responsible for what bridges. It wasn't necessarily based on who owned the asset who was in the best position to take care of it and we have operated under that practice for about the last 16 years.

Okay, well that's my time. I just wanted to thank you and take the opportunity again to thank the public testimonies that are here today. Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Councillor. Let me go to Councillor Mejia. Councillor Mejia. You're up.

Thank you, Councilor Offlin. And as chair, I really do appreciate you taking some of the public testimony out of turn. So thank you for your grace and allowing that to happen. I think it's really important for us to Keep grounding the conversation on the people that we serve. So I just want to thank you all for your patience and being here. So, and I didn't get to say thank you to the city. I do appreciate you all. It does not go lost on me. I know it's not easy, and I also want to thank Ricardo, because I was blowing up your phone the first time around talking about, what is this? Come clean this up. My constituents moved very differently in terms of how they want to hold us accountable. So I really do appreciate the response. I think that it was a really weird cleaning up of the First Storm.

Having grown up here in the city of Boston and being a resident during Marty's administration when we had the 2015 and 2014 or 2016, I can't remember. 2015, that was crazy. It just felt very different in terms of How we cleaned up the streets in the different iterations of administration and this particular first time around, and I'm just curious about What lessons have we learned from the snow storm in January? And it seems like the lessons that we learned in January were quickly applied this go around. And I do believe that there's still some areas for improvement. And similar to Councilor Pepén's question regarding, or I think it was Flynn, I can't remember who it was, but

I know that when folks are driving down certain neighborhoods, there are lots of snow banks that could easily, at least this is what I'm thinking, could be cleared If there's a lot of snow in one place, that would allow for some more mobility opportunities or even parking so that people are able to walk through and all that. Do you know why those parking spots and remain full of snow.

Sure, so just from a capacity standpoint, the city does not prioritize removing snow from parking spaces. We do do a lot of work in main thoroughfares and business districts, Just from a capacity standpoint, we're limited as far as how much snow we can remove. In regards to the winter of 2015, we received A record 110 inches of snow that winter in less than five weeks. While this past month has been very challenging, It is not as challenging as the conditions that the city faced as a whole during that winter. I guess to your first question, we learn lessons in every snow and ice event. We try to hold ourselves accountable and do better. Every storm for us is a learning opportunity.

and you know we're very fortunate that we have a team that really wants to hold themselves accountable and do the best job they can for the city.

Let me, let me, yeah, thank you for that. Let me clarify, I'm gonna talk specifically on Washington Street in Grove Hall. That's District 4. There was a bus stop in front of a hair salon, a Dominican one that I go to, just so that I know what I'm talking about. And there was a huge patch of snow. and folks who needed to get on the bus needed to literally climb over because even the crosswalk where there was a ramp was blocked. and that is the specific example that I'm referring to because it's not just for parking, it is like just going down and just getting everything that's on the curb lining up, not just for people to be able to park, but to be able to just have access to the bus stop.

So I'm just curious as to, I understand that it's a capacity issue, but if we already have the Bobcats out, can't it just like keep, Plowing down the street to get rid of it all? Or is that just crazy talk?

No, we do do a lot of that work. Some snow can be stored. When we get as much snow as we've had this past month, it gets difficult to find places to put it.

What about Franklin Park?

We did have a snow farm going at Franklin Park. Sometimes our snow clearing, our plowing, we need to remove. That is a little bit more involved.

And I know my time is up. I was just in New York this weekend, and it didn't even look like it snowed in New York. Juxtapose to what we're still seeing here in Boston. So I want to shout out Mayor of New York City for cleaning it up as quickly as he did.

Thank you, Council Member. Councilor Durkan, please. You have four minutes.

Thank you so much, Chair. It does feel a little bit like the formatting of this hearing was being decided while we've been sitting here, and I don't appreciate that as someone who has to run in between My commitment and make sure that I'm delivering for my constituents. And it does feel like Commissioner Gove probably has somewhere to be because there's snow falling right now. So I'm not going to ask you to respond to that, Commissioner, or sorry, Chief Gove. I know you coming from DCR you understand that these jurisdictional issues better than anyone else. What can we do to promote coordination? You know I have a lot of you know, DCR specifically, MassDOT, and MBTA. you know land in my district and I'm just curious and I some of the crosswalks that I cleared personally were MBTA although I understand they have a lot to do throughout the city I'm just curious

How we can promote coordination and what the communication looks like.

Sure. Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, I mean, we do a lot of coordination between MassDOT, the MBTA, DCR, and the City before, during and after events. We are continuing to work with The MBTA on the best way to clear bus stops. For example, the city clears a large number of those bus stops under our street furniture contract. The MBTA commits to clearing a number of the bus stops as part of their program and I think now we need to work to figure out who's going to clean, who's going to take responsibility for that balance in between. I think we can work on developing some comms for the website and other areas where we can better communicate kind of who's responsible for what. Those conversations have begun and I hope that that's something we can work on in advance of next season.

Thank you so much. And I know, Councillor Pepén, I actually got Rule 15 to this meeting. I filed something in support of the Public Works employees and crews and contractors. So we are partnering together on a resolution on Wednesday to thank you and your team for all of your leadership. I think it's incredibly important that as folks who We represent districts that we're supporting city workers every day. Folks that live in the city of Boston have been working overtime. I just want to thank you for that and acknowledge a lot of city residents, specifically in my district, I've been really grateful for the last storm and all the valiant efforts. I use the word valiant, Enrique used other words, I'm really grateful for your leadership. Did want to ask, I know there was a filing on snow melters. Does it make financial sense to rent versus buy? I know we're renting right now. Can you explain sort of what? that decision making process looks like?

Sure. This is something the city has investigated on numerous occasions. I believe we actually did a solicitation for snowmelters in 23 or 24. You know, they're not cheap. These are, you know, assets that can run well over half a million dollars a piece. And then, you know, there's maintenance costs associated with that as well. We haven't had a chance to do kind of a full accounting yet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And climate change, it's not just getting warmer, it's also getting more blizzardy and colder and so. Yeah, I'm just curious. I think we're going to have more extreme weather events. I just wanted to put one question onto the record. I'm just curious how you have thought about there are a number of I know 311 isn't exactly your cabinet, but there's been some areas in 311 that have been changed or moved. If potentially we could do a meeting with my office just to go through some of the experiences we've had submitting things to 311 to make sure that all of the categories that residents need to use are there.

Sure. Not aware of the specific issues, but I'm sure we're happy to help work on what the issue is.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Commissioner and Chief. Sorry.

For the record, I tried to be respectful to everybody during this hearing. I knew that there were persons with disabilities here. I wanted to make sure that they were heard. that they were seen, that their voice was heard. And I think listening to persons with disabilities makes us a better city and actually improves the quality of life in delivery of basic city services. I think it's important that city officials such as myself and the Chief of Streets and others listen respectfully to persons with disabilities. That's why I went forward with persons with disabilities first. Weber. You have four minutes.

Okay, thank you. Sorry. Commissioner, no, Interim Chief Gove. So we heard about Montreal. I think they get like three times the amount of snow. We get maybe slightly more, slightly less. If you look at how they remove snow, they push it into the middle of the street and then there's a combine harvester or something that sucks up the snow and and many more. But have you looked at that? Why don't we do it that way in Boston? What are the costs of that? And I don't know, just your thoughts.

Sure. you know yeah Montreal I think averages between 79 and 83 inches of snow a year but but they have seen some historic winters where you know that's up to 125 plus I've had an opportunity to actually see the snow and ice removal operation in Montreal. It is a combination of many of the tools that we have, but also A culture around compliance to move vehicles post-storm. Many of their streets are set up with permanent signage. similar to like our streets cleaning signage that we have for street sweeping and people just know that you know following a storm I think their benchmark is five or six inches that City's going to implement a parking ban. I think it goes into effect at either 7 or 9 p.m. and it's on one side of the street and it's part of the culture there.

So that would obviously take a significant commitment from the city to be able to commit to that. But in addition, what Montreal has, Thank you. Thank you. There is plenty of room to dump snow and frankly that is one of the biggest challenges for us is where to put it once we haul it.

Yeah, I went up to Montreal after New Year's at the end of break there with my kids. And the sidewalks were cleared of snow, but there was a layer of ice on every sidewalk. And I've heard that that's an issue. I don't know if that's accurate. Certainly a lot of dangerous sidewalks in Montreal even though they were clear of snow. Maybe they don't believe in salt.

Ice is a significant challenge for them on sidewalks like it is frankly many. Many cities. But there are many of the... Pedestrian snow and ice equipment machines have various attachments depending upon what the respective treatment is.

Okay. And then I guess for Commissioner McCosh and maybe Commissioner Shea also, Just in terms of like, you know, we've heard about getting the width of the sidewalks, you know, accessible for people. You know, like, I guess what is your, I think we can all agree we need to increase accessibility to sidewalks, especially we're talking about outlying neighborhoods The district councilors represent where you're relying on people to shovel. The property owner might be a senior. It might be somebody with a disability. What kind of tools do you wish that we had here in the city for that?

We do a lot of messaging. I will say that. We try to be proactive with getting the information out there so that property owners know what their responsibilities are. And we know it's challenging, especially for seniors and for people with disabilities. A lot of the work we do is behind the scenes, so I think members of the public don't see, but we meet about this constantly. We've looked at a lot of things. It would be great to have some sort of snow removal program that could at least do curb cuts and some of the medians that we know don't get shoveled when you're trying to cross the street because that's a safe haven for people who are trying to cross. It really is just a matter of capacity. Like I know a few things that are mentioned, like when Bill mentioned a snow brigade. You know, when you talk about, oh, this business will do it and they'll donate money, we really don't want to put... We know residents pay a lot, so it really is just a matter of capacity.

and it's just a challenge. I don't have a magic bullet, I wish I did. I don't know if Emily, you have anything, Commissioner Shea, if you'd like to add anything.

Yeah, I don't know that I have a lot to add. We do a lot of helping residents problem solve. I think working with older people, many of them have been through many storms. So we do a lot of trying to problem solve about potential people to ask Thank you. Thank you. I feel like this is really it's a it's a whole community effort right and we all have to to try and do our part in the winter but it is definitely a challenge

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Weber.

I'll also take four minutes. Based on the Do we know if there was there anyone in the persons with disabilities community that filed any type of lawsuit or complaint against the city stating that based on the access or lack of access for persons with disabilities that Boston will have to change the way that they plow the streets or address snow removal going forward. Has that been the case at all? I know that has happened in other cities, but has that particular case Any scenario like that happen yet in Boston?

I'm not aware of any litigation, but I want to ask Commissioner McCosh to see if she's heard anything.

Yeah, we did have one official ADA grievance filed with our office. and that was related to snow that wasn't removed in certain crosswalks in Kenmoskwe area and also related to 311

What is the process for someone filing an ADA?

So the ADA requires all municipalities with more than 50 employees to have an ADA coordinator, which is the role that I fulfill. And part of my role is to work on discrimination complaints, which are We have a form online. People can click on it. They can call our office. I can send an email. They don't have to use the term grievance. If something comes in as a complaint, I'll assess it to see if it rises to the level of a grievance. This one came in as an actual grievance.

Okay. So, Commissioner, when you place snow in the middle of a or in the crosswalk in the street next to the sidewalk, and then there's the ramp there and it's left, the snow is left there for a period of time. Why is that?

So, Council, we don't intentionally place snow in the crosswalks or intersections, but the The cross nature of plowing obviously can leave snow in those areas as well as the long curb cuts, gutter cuts that we make when cleaning long laterals. That is why in big intersections, we often go back afterward and remove that with equipment such as skid steers, loaders, et cetera, because we recognize that that's a significant burden for property owners in these larger events.

The troubling aspect for me is seeing a crosswalk I've seen them 14, 15 feet high of snow blocking the access for a person with disability. Commissioner, the concurrent lighting that we talk about frequently During the snowstorm, with the snow still on the ground, can you make a commitment to me that we'll change that rule temporarily so both the vehicle and the pedestrian don't have the same right-of-way? I see people, I saw a person in a wheelchair trying to cross the street and the car couldn't see the person based on how tall the, Stomound, was it? Is that something you would consider?

Yeah, I mean, while we certainly understand the concern around it, the challenge is that, well, there's a few issues. First and foremost, the city can't go out and physically change every signal The other issue is that if we were to do so those signals would then conflict with our posted regulations in the form of our signs that exist. Um, In addition, the signals wouldn't necessarily then be coordinated with each other. There would be impacts to MBTA buses. And all of this we feel would be really confusing and unpredictable for for the traffic patterns, frankly for all modes.

I do want to follow up on that, but out of respect for my colleagues, my time is up. Thank you.

Councilor, excuse me, Chair, I'm going to dismiss myself just because of the weather. I understand. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate it. Thank you for the Council's time. Thank you for everyone who's attended today. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. If anyone else needs to leave, I completely understand. Thanks again. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilors.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to try to get through as much public testimony as I can. And I'm going to probably give, I think I might have 50 people. I'm going to try to give everyone a minute. I know that doesn't seem all that much time. I do want to be fair. On Zoom, can you put through Jonathan Elves, Randy Greeley, and and Sophia, and then people that haven't testified yet. Can you raise your hand if you want to testify? Because I know some people have left. Okay, okay, so probably about 10 people.

Maybe if three people wanna come down here, and three people come down here, if that's okay with everybody. I'm going to try to give everybody one minute. There's Jonathan Ells from the south end. Jonathan, you have one minute, Jonathan.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Flynn. I'll be quick. Jonathan Alves, 11-year resident of the South End, president of the Blackstone Franklin Square and East Berkeley Neighborhood Association. I just want to make a comment. The conditions this year around snow removal have not been good. There was some improvement after the last snowstorm and the city workers deserve some credit for that because I did see them out there at all hours in the night. But overall, it's not acceptable. Most of what I heard today from the city is a focus and a priority on street infrastructure for cars. And that's OK. We got to move cars and buses. but what we're lacking is on pedestrian infrastructure and clearing. I am a frequent rider of the number 10 bus, the Orange Line, and the SL4, SL5 bus. The stops and the accessibility at those bus stops this past winter have been unacceptable, if not dangerous.

I have a two-year-old daughter I have to push her in a stroller and unfortunately I got a torn Achilles so I'm in a boot so the experience for people with disabilities has been personal this time around But even when I didn't have the disability, it still was not accessible. Waiting in the road for the bus because you can't access the stop from the sidewalk. calling the state because you're under the assumption that the MBTA does the bus stops and then being told it's the city and then the city telling you it's the state is not acceptable. So I'll just wrap it up with, if snow melters is what we need to do it, that's fine, but I think it's a manpower issue. and I think we gotta focus on pedestrians more so than the car infrastructure, which we're doing okay at.

Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. Is Randy on? Can Randy? Yes, Councilor. Go ahead, Randy. Hi, thank you.

My name's Randy Guerrilla. I'm with the Young South Boston L.A. War Veterans. I'm just reaching out today as I just want to give a shout out to our Public Works Department as they did an amazing job down the time count for their event this past weekend. We're appointed on Nation's History that we have two significant events coming up in the next week and a half. For us, it's our annual evacuation day, St. Patrick's Day Parade. and then second is the rededication of Dorchester Heights. I'm just hoping that the city will Grace South Boston with the same support that it cleared the streets and sidewalks of Chinatown for their event because there's a good chance If evacuation day never happened, we're not here as a country right now. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Randy. I was in Chinatown over the weekend several times. Boston Public Works did an outstanding job. It's great to be with constituents there as well for celebration of Lunar New Year. Could you please introduce yourself? And you have one minute, please.

Thank you. My name is Hannah Lynn Mell. I'm disabled. People usually don't believe me. I've asked that I have a disability placard for my bicycle. It's my mobility device, but I haven't gotten word from the MBTA if I get one. I have doctor's appointments on the Green Line on the regular and I would like to take my bicycle rather than being forced to buy a fold-up bicycle. I'm a survivor of sexual assault. I've worked as a hospital chaplain, a music educator, and a trauma sensitive yoga teacher in the Commonwealth for the past 22 years. I can't pay rent in Somerville as I sell a condo in Amesbury based on the amount of I hope that we can utilize some aspect of collective effervescence and Maybe next time have all of the citizens talk first rather than everyone else.

Can we do a second hearing where the citizens start talking? We have ideas for you.

Thank you. I will commit to that. I do want to ensure that Councillor Pepén and Councillor Worrell have very good ideas that really weren't fully debated. I do want to, I will commit to another Public Hearing, whether it's in 30 days or 60 days, but I do want to give a fair opportunity to Councilor Pep and Councilor Worrell and others that have very good proposals. We didn't get the time to do it, so I will commit to that and commit to my colleagues to do that. Thank you. Thank you. One of you, yep, we'll switch sides. Go ahead, sir.

Okay. Great. My name is Katerina Torres-Radicek. I'm a community organizer at the Boston Center for Independent Living. I'm also the director of the Riders Transportation Access Group. We're a community-based advisory group to the MBTA focused on transportation matters impacting people with disabilities and older adults. Our mission is simple but urgent to ensure that people with disabilities and older adults have every opportunity to be fully participating members of our community. I'm here today to highlight the serious and preventable Barriers people with disabilities and older adults face when the city fails to adequately clear snow from sidewalks, curb cuts, and bus stops. When curb cuts are blocked, sidewalks remain unsheveled, and bus stops are inaccessible, people with disabilities cannot safely travel to medical appointments, jobs, school, grocery stores, or community events. They cannot exercise their independence or participate equally. I've heard from fellow disabled community members who feel forced to hunker down for days after a storm, long after others have resumed their daily routines.

What may be an inconvenience for some becomes total isolations for others. The MBTA is currently responsible for clearing snow and ice from stops along the Silver Line and 22 frequent bus routes within 24 hours of the end of snowfall. That still leaves thousands of bus stops uncovered. With more than 7,000 stops system-wide, the MBTA does not have the capacity or funding to expand its snow removal contract to cover the remaining locations. At the same time, there's no clear legislation establishing who is responsible for clearing snow at the other bus stops. The result is confusion in action and unsafe conditions. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Reggie Ramos. I am the Executive Director of Transportation for Massachusetts. We co-convene Shared Spaces, a collective of disability cycling and pedestrian advocates, and community leaders in Boston. We also co-lead Transit is Essential, a coalition of over 50 organizations in the Boston area that work for transportation justice. We acknowledge the efforts of the city, especially in the last two snowstorms. Our most recent experience behooved us all to institutionalize some sort of snowstorm response and protocol. From what we heard from our members, the chaos and anxiety around the January snow removal is mostly rooted in not knowing when and where and whether plowing or removal would actually take place. Residents would benefit from a systematic snow removal plan that outlines a tiered prioritization system based on public safety and accessibility requirements and traffic volume. This means a clear prioritization of people over cars.

making sure pedestrian crossings, curb cuts, sidewalks are prioritized over highways. prioritizing first responders to access schools and bus stops. On this note, we want to make sure that as we are talking about safety and snowbags that encumber curb scouts, pedestrian crossings, and bus stops directly impact our safety, and the ability of residents to access public transportation. Like Bill who testified earlier, we have not heard from the city on its larger transportation projects since May March of 2025. We all deserve to know what the plan is. I would like to thank this council for actually raising the 30-day review of the city, and we would like to hear from the city after almost a year of what its plans are. I have here and sharing with you here all our letters that have gone unresponded by the city. Sharing details. Thank you very much. Sharing it with the entire council and hopefully we have a hearing scheduled on the 30-day review and what the plans are.

Thank you.

Hello, my name's Matthias Remillard. I'm here as a member of the Boston Cyclist Union. I lived in JP for three years, and I own a home on Hyde Park Ave in Councilor Worrell's district. I currently live in Somerville. I know I don't look disabled. I'm sighted, I'm hearing, and I'm able to stand and walk unassisted most of the time. I travel primarily by bike, the T, and on foot, and I do not own a car. I'm very physically active and independent and that is because I ride a bike. It is a mobility aid for me since I can't walk or stand for very long without fatigue due to dysautonomia. On my bike, I'm able to get around under my own power. Off my bike, it functions as a walker and carries the things I need to function outside my home without adding weight to my body. After the first storm this winter, I saw sidewalks so unsafe that people had to walk on whatever bike lane was cleared, meaning we pedestrians and cyclists had to share so little space and the car travel lanes were clear. I have to ride in the travel lanes and I have not infrequently been harassed by inpatient drivers tailgating and honking at me when I have literally nowhere else, nowhere safer to ride.

The bike lanes frequently have six foot walls of plowed snow blocking them at intersections and cars parked in the bike lanes because they don't shovel out their own parking spots. Both of these constitute failures to clear the bike lanes and put me at risk as I'm just trying to travel. I want the city to actually clear the bike lanes and enforce the state law against parking in the bike lanes. I beseech the city to consider clearing sidewalks and bike lanes as equally important to car travel lanes, not an afterthought. We cannot continue to prioritize cars over people. It is unfair, discriminatory and endangers our lives. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Brennan Carney. I'm Executive Director of Walk Massachusetts. Hi, Councillor. A statewide pedestrian advocacy organization founded in 1990 as Walk Boston. You've heard the bat already, so I'm going to stress what we need to do better. The importance of ensuring curb cuts are cleared. Property owners are required to clear sidewalks and curb cuts that abut their property. It's so difficult when plow trucks leave massive piles of snow on the street corners. We heard in the lead up to this past blizzard, the city would have plow operators avoid doing that. That's a great step forward on this one storm. That needs to be part of the priority. All winter storm responsive, not just one storm. Looking ahead to next year, before the last storm, Interim Chief of Streets Gove referenced creating something similar to DCR's snow removal priorities. Great. Maha mentioned that earlier from Livable Streets, awesome. Repeat offenders in Cambridge, they reach out proactively before the winter season to the worst of the worst, to let them know their requirements and that they expect the snow to be cleared. We should be doing that too.

Lastly, in the Walsh administration, they had a website called Snow Stats where people could look at the snow removal operations from GPS tracked plows. We should bring that back. I already talked to some people within the city who were responsible for those things in the past and they said that's something we could probably look at again. So thank you very much.

Thank you. And the other thing I want to highlight, if people have, I know that your testimony was cut short, but if you have longer testimony and you want to forward your full statement to me, I will make sure it gets added to the record and city councilors will be able to

Hi, my name is Hayden Seager. I'm a resident of Back Bay and a member of the Boston Cyclists Union. Yeah, throughout the testimony today, It seemed like the people testifying were saying, ah, there's nothing we can do. I don't know. To me, it seems that you can look to other municipalities to find ideas. Are we the only city that has snow in it? Probably not. New York shoveling program was mentioned quite a bit. I love this Minneapolis data-driven prioritization program. I really think this should be But ultimately, I see it as like an economic problem. Increase the fines. Like if people are doing this, You know, supply and demand talks.

And then, ultimately, I am a biker, I'm a walker, I use the T. I see it as more of like a respect issue. People who walk and bike are... In this city, I say they're respected more, but in other cities, you're poor if you bike or if you take the bus or something like that. Yeah, I'd like to see maybe the respect change a bit to prioritize other things that are not cars. So, yeah, thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Good evening. Tiffany Cogill, she, her, Boston Cyclist Union Interim Executive Director. So two weeks after the end of January snowstorm on February 4th, A BU student activist posted pictures of a snow-filled bike lane on Commonwealth Ave, particularly around the Babcock area in the BCU Slack channel. On the 5th of February, we had already organized a campaign, or a call to action, if you will, for people to call into 311 Contact their city councilors, mayor's office, and it was reported that very few complaints received responses. We want to thank the city councilors that took the time to respond to those complaints. Thank you to those city councilors and thank you to those who shared those messages with the intent of finding a solution. February 6th, we had a day of action.

Over 20 activists brought in their shovels to clear mobility lanes or the bike lane on Commonwealth at Back Hop, a facility that so many students and commuters rely on. Thank you. When bike lanes are not cleared after a snowstorm, cyclists are pushed into traffic or forced to stay home, and that is not safe or fair, otherwise equitable. In the winter months, snow piles, ice and slush block the lanes that many of us rely on to get to work, to get to school, and to get to appointments. For people who cannot afford a car or choose biking for health and climate reasons, inaccessible bike lanes take away a basic transportation option. The city must treat bike lanes and micro mobility lanes as essential infrastructure. We are asking the city to understand that this is an equity issue.

Just like roads and sidewalks, we need them to be cleared and quickly fared. Safe winter maintenance is about equity, safety, and making sure all residents can move through Boston with dignity.

Thank you.

My name is Alex Alex from Dorchester and I'm here representing my own consulting agency 100 for Democracy. I would like to begin by picking up on a point that Hannah made. In two and a half hours, we heard from four testimonies and two panelists. In that same time, city councillors talked multiple times. Multiple city councillors have now gone. All the city employees who should be here listening to this have also gone. I feel like we need to adjust our system a little bit. My personal testimony is that last week I brought 200 pounds of broken flex posts, cones, signs, and other devices to City Hall, previously blocking bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks. Weeks before that, I cleaned up bristles from a broken street sweeper that were all over the plaza and the bike lane. Yesterday, I was confronted by seven police and municipal guards who were cleaning up the rest of the bristles, a beer bottle, and a few more broken safety devices that were on the plaza. They had no desire to confront the people parking in the bus and bike lanes right in front of them. It is nearly a year since I began public advocacy work, documenting city issues and drafting solutions I share with city leaders. I know many of you have seen the solutions that I posted.

The state of the streets this winter is a problem made worse by the season. The snows, the plows, and still-uncleared pedestrian walkways reiterate my points about city neglect, car worship, and failing climate equity goals. After seeing how much drivers and plows damage traffic infrastructure, I hope the city does not plan a one-to-one replacement, or worse, stall for months on basic cleanup, let alone improvements. Again, the stuff that I brought to City Hall has been out there for weeks or months. Today, I brought a flex post from the Boylston Street that has been on the sidewalk since fall. Security did not let it in. A crosswalk on Cambridge Street five minutes from here is currently flooded on one end and blocked in the middle in the median like we just brought up. I've shared many policy sheets with the Council detailing ideas to improve transit and streets. Specifically for snow, adopt the Snow Day Exchange where BPS students clear snow and engage in community so the snow days count for the academic calendar. Last week, multiple plows blocked crosswalks that are already cleared. Crosswalks the City and BTD are responsible for. Government agencies need to stop piling snow at these key spots and make an effort to clear them in between. Last month, I also suggested that the City Council organize supplies and drinks slash warm stations during community efforts to clear snow.

Specifically on the bike lanes, the cleanup along Mass Ave is atrocious. As of 1.30 today, it is impassable. I have footage of it.

Thank you. I do want to be respectful to others that are here and to the public. I do respect you and your opinion, but I do want to get on to others.

I would respect your action on these issues.

Thank you.

My name is Max Poitier. I live in the Hyde Park area. I'm here because of City Councilor Pepén. Because I reached out to him and he responded. Basically, I lived in Hyde Park for some 35 years. It's a dead-end street issue. Dead-end street with a driveway. No place to push the snow. At the end, the contractor simply pushed the snow right in front of my car, in front of my house, buried for three days. At the end, I had to hire a contractor to push the snow out so I could have access to my car. I heard the word Speak to power from that lady over there. You should be able to speak to power. Without, when you have power to do things, you have a responsibility also. Not just the power to do.

The street was converted from a private way to a public street. Since then, it's been a nightmare. Because we end up having a driveway at the end of the street, no place to push this now. Unacceptable. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your testimony. Hello. It's good to be with you. Thank you for testifying.

Good afternoon. My name is Daniela Dupina. I am from the Boston Center Independent Living. I'm the independent... Disability Peer Advocate, and I'm also visually impaired. I live in Dorchester. I know it's been spoke that says that this second storm I can't get out. I can't go do groceries. I can't... bring my 11-year-old to school. I had to depend on people to bring her. I had to get on my knees, on the floor, on my butt to get to the ride because I take the ride for the transportation to go to work. Um, so I have to get on my, but to get on the floor, to climb those stairs, and usually when it's so, it's so unsafe, the ride cannot take you. But they've been good enough to help me out on that icy,

Condition with me and so they're putting their safety, their life on the road to help me but it's not safe. So I'm here. to ask you, as we look to making things better, you know, as Commissioner said, you know, I've been working on this for a while now, so I'm asking to not just brush this under the table, but let's Put our brains together to see how we could make this better. Yes, it's March and the spring is coming, we might say, It's over, we're worried about it next year, but let's put our heads together because if you don't have accessibility, this is an emergency, this is a safety issue. What if something happened and I can't get out with me and my 11-year-old at home? Thanks for letting me share.

Thank you for your important testimony. Yes sir.

Good afternoon. My name is Ralph Walton. I'm a resident of the Brookside Avenue neighborhood. I have several categories here. The first is is there needs to be an inventory of crosswalks which cross median strips, Crosswalks that cross islands between the edges of the intersections and a slip lane to make sure that these crossings in public space are maintained.

quickly and re-maintained as street clearing is widening and sometimes they have to be done every three hours because of the widening. I want to share notes about Defective contracted equipment and overuse of salt, or what, not overuse, but wasteful use of salt. which sometimes is connected with the contracted equipment and managed properties that do have an agreement with a contractor to remove snow within three hours, but three hours later, End of the street, you can't get into their cleared cross, into their cleared sidewalk.

Thank you very much.

Okay, there's particulars on the defective equipment I'm gonna have to write up, I guess.

Yeah, for anyone that does want to send their formal testimony in, You can email it to me directly at ed.flynn at boston.gov, ed.flynn at boston.gov. I will make sure we get it to city council central staff, but also to the city councilors. All that public testimony will be shared to every City Councillor. Is that Ford?

Yeah. Hi, thank you.

Good to see you, Ford.

Good to see you, Councillor. Thank you very much. My name is Ford Cavallari. I chair the Alliance of Downtown Civic Organizations. And I'm going to try to keep my comments very quick. Number one, New York City had excellent snow removal with a similar amount of snow. They are possibly going to get a 9.5% property tax hike. We are getting a certain 13% property tax height, and we had, and let's be clear-eyed, we had horrible snow removal. In the north end where I live, there is a fire lane that has yet to be cleared. It has six feet of snow, fire hydrant practically buried for a week. There was actually an emergency event. Fortunately, it didn't include a fire. And two fire engines, a bunch of ambulances, and I just...

Thank you.

Hi.

Hi. My name is Elise Patterson. I'm the founder, executive, and artistic director of Abilities Dance Boston, which employs disabled and diverse artists and administrators across the area to do Adapt Dance Education classes to do performances and more. I'm going to bring another point of the economic impacts of this. Because we're already a historically underemployed and unemployed community as is, so when there is the issue of sidewalk blockage, my teachers can't get out to teach classes on site, my dancers can't get to rehearsals, and the venues refuse to give us the fees back because and many more. Accessibility Manifesto to better improve the streets and sidewalks of our city. So I highly recommend you look into that as well because these solutions do exist but they might be literally on a shelf somewhere.

Thank you. Perfect timing.

Are you up next? Yep. Hi, I'm Scott Kilcoyne. I'm a volunteer with the Boston Cyclist Union. Hey, Scott. I helped shovel out the bike lanes on ComAv, which needed that because they were completely forgotten about by the city. The city, not just forgotten, but completely disdained by the city. They were used as and many other places to dump the snow in, which is where we ended up with snow piles that were as tall as me that we dug through. Also, the city had completely forgotten or ignored or had disdain for some bus stops that The stop itself was clear, but there was no access to the stop. We had to clear that out. There was accessible parking that had a three-foot berm of snow. You could not actually use the accessible parking to get anywhere. So this is a whole complete system failure on the city. But there's plenty of solutions. places elsewhere to look.

In Cambridge, just last night, they voted to move forward on developing a snow core. In Rochester, they have municipal sidewalk clearance That cost $30 per resident per year. They get much more snow than we do. In Sweden, they have redesigned how they actually plan snow removal. to start with the residential streets and the sidewalks and have found that cut significantly on hospital missions because cars are still able to drive through some slush but you can actually now walk and get around the city and really it's about focusing on the residents and how they need to get around and what we're doing right now is focusing on suburbanites.

Thank you. Thank you. And just as a brief follow-up, I'm going to hopefully have a hearing on Councilor Pepén and Councilor Worrell's Specific dockets maybe in the next 30 or 60 days and we'll make sure we include you and have a longer period for public testimony as well. We still have people on Zoom, right? We still have some people on Zoom that are testifying. Ron, could you let one person in at a time, please?

Hey, Rick, you have a minute. Go ahead, Rick. Rick, you're up.

Yeah, thank you. It took a little while to get it there. My name is Rick Yoder. I'm a resident on Eastern Rossendale along American Legion Highway. I'll cut this in half if I can. Two of our major commercial owners of our American Legion Highway shopping mall constantly ignore their responsibility for shoveling snow on the public sidewalks. The last month heavy snow, they never shoveled any of the public sidewalk along American Legion. It results, obviously, in the pedestrians walking along the highway must walk in the roadway as they pass the mall or walk to the mall's bus stop. The owners always clear their 400-car parking lot within a few hours of the last snowflake, but not the public sidewalk. The $200 commercial fine is apparently not enough to motivate for these large corporations to change behavior.

It is not clear to me if they even bother to pay it or how well the city monitors or enforces payments. Several years ago, during a similar series of snowstorms, it took a neighbor 10 or more trips to the Mall over several weeks to repeatedly take pictures, write up a description, and then send it to 311, all while standing in the cold. The effort was not enough. In addition, various elected officials appointed and others had to be involved before even a minimal amount of the sidewalk clearance occurred. On the other hand, in Minneapolis- Rick, could you take 10 more seconds, Rick? If you do not clear your sidewalk in Minneapolis, in a reasonable amount of time, you'll be charged for the cost to the city for doing it plus a fine. If unpaid, it will be added to your tax bill. I like that plan.

Thank you, Rick. Thank you. I know there's still some more public testimony, but I wanted to give an opportunity for my colleagues to give a closing statement. I'll still be here for public testimony, but Councilor Mejia, would you like to give a closing statement?

I'll wait until the end of the public testimony. I just want to make sure that I get my Two cents in before everybody else leaves.

Okay, thank you, Council Member Heer. Ron, can you put the next person up, please?

Hello.

Hi, it's good to see you. You're up.

Yep, Allie Foley here in Back Bay. I'm representing as a neighborhood advocate today, even though I'm a chair of the Block Captains Program over here in Back Bay. We did have a significant issue with Accessibility for Fire and Rescue Ambulance, Accessing the Trinity Condominium Area, which is The area at Dartmouth Street and Blagdon Street to the backside of the public library. And it did delay the 911 response time and the ambulance had to back out and go around and re-approach from Exeter. So that area does need a look at who's responsible for which street and cleaning over there. It was cleaned better this storm. I will like to say that your wet... I like to see that used in the public alleys, which inherently have very narrow sidewalks.

and so homeowners that are parked in this public alleys cannot clear the snow properly because they don't have anywhere to put it. So I think snow deicing in that area or melting would be most appropriate. And lastly, Three words somebody in that room needs to add to the website where we talk about snow responsibility by resident and homeowners. You need to add entire property line. You mentioned 42-inch width path needs to be cleared. That is a little ambiguous, whether it's 42 wide, 42 long. We have people interpreting it as 42 long. Thank you. So, entire property line needs to be added to the website language. Thank you very much, and thanks for your advocacy, Ed.

Thank you. And I mentioned the ambulance-related challenge, public safety challenge, in my opening statement. I want to follow up with you, Ali, tomorrow or Thursday on that issue.

Sure, not a problem. Thank you. Thanks for the advocacy.

Thank you. Could you put the next person in, Ron? Good afternoon, you're up next.

Hi, this is Lisa Beatman. Are you referring to me?

Yes, I am. It's good to be with you.

Wonderful. Wonderful, thank you. Good to see my District City Councilor Worrell and Councilor Pepén. I live on the border of both. So I'll be very quick. Many people have said things that I was prepared to say. So two things. One is, I urge you, given some recent comments, have one of your interns create a survey link for concrete ideas to improve the snow clearance situation. and send it out ASAP. You know, there are so many people like me and all the people who have spoken who have come prepared with some ideas. And so that's a way to harvest them, get them in writing. The other thing that I want to mention, which hasn't been spoken of much. There's a lot of residents that shovel and a lot that don't, including a lot of absentee landlords.

Next door to me, neither the landlords nor the tenants have shoveled anything. So I want to hear comfort ways to incentivize and enforce. One idea could be attaching liens to the properties of non-compliant landlords. Outreach needs to be done to people who are mobility impaired and slow going seniors. Many do not reach out for help, including my household of seniors. But the other thing is, this has created what I'm calling kind of a snow rage, like road rage. And many, many residents are taking out their frustrations on each other. as they're competing to be able to park and drive on narrow streets with heap of snow, like my neighborhood in Eastern Rossendale with all these dense pocket neighborhoods with narrow streets. Although there's some instances of cooperation, there's far more instances of indifference and selfishness. The younger able-bodied people are not offering to help. Thank you.

So something needs to change. Thank you.

No, thank you. And you mentioned at the beginning, you have Councilor Pepén and Councilor Worrell. You're in the middle of the district there, but you have two great, City Councilors that advocate for you. Ron, who's next?

That was Lisa. Yeah, that was Lisa.

Hello.

Hi, it's good to be with you.

You too. My name is Nikki Kuchipudi. I'm a resident of the Alston Brighton neighborhood, and I also use an electric wheelchair to get around. I just wanted to share some of my experiences from recent snowstorms. The main obstacles that I faced were sidewalks that weren't cleared at all by property owners or sidewalks that were cleared but not with a wide enough path to accommodate my wheelchair. and most often I encountered sidewalks that would end in an uncleared curb cut usually as a result of snow plows piling snow from the road onto the curb cuts. In these situations, I would usually opt to travel on the roads, which is dangerous. And a few times I have gotten stuck on an improperly cleared sidewalk and would have to rely on passerbys to push me out. A non-disabled person might be able to step over these piles, but my wheelchair can't do that.

The other obstacles are being able to access bus stops. I found that a lot of Bus stops were improperly cleared out so that the bus wasn't able to get right up next to the curb and deploy the ramp so I could board the bus. These obstacles prevent disabled residents from getting to work, accessing grocery stores, doctors' offices, and essential services, and seeing friends and family. and the city should definitely invest in a more robust procedure for snow removal as well as equipment because without the disabled residents are going to be isolated, stranded or navigating dangerous situations.

Thank you for your testimony. Just want to acknowledge Cassandra and Bill are still with us, civil rights leaders here in Boston, but want to say thank you to Cassandra and Bill for being here, for listening to the Public testimony and we respect you and we respect your advocacy.

Anyone else?

Hello. You're up next. Sybil.

Oh, hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Sybil Johnson and I am a long-term member of Hyde Park. I'm trying to shorten this. I do believe that there is a systematic gap of secondary clearing of the side streets. I think the city cleans obviously primary roads well, but crosswalks, bus stops, accessible ramps are treated as afterthoughts. I would like to implore that the city employ a systematic Cleaning Plan for side streets with assigned crews and measurable timelines. And with that, the city should also be held accountable, just as the residents are, For instance, if space savers that have been removed in two days, the city should also be held to a reasonable timeline of two days to remove the snow. Establishing a 48-hour standard for intersection snow removal and expand hauling operations so snow is physically removed from corners, etc.

I want to shout out my city councilor Enrique. We've met and talked about a lot of things, but I learned a lot during this hearing and I will submit my other proposals in writing to you guys.

Thank you. Thank you, Sybil, and you could send it to myself, and I'll make sure all counselors receive it. Again, it's ed.flynn at boston.gov. Thank you, Sybil, for testifying. I believe we have one other person. Okay. I'm going to go to closing statements right now. I will start with Councilor Pepén. Councilor Pepén, you have two minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank everyone for the opening statement, for your public testimonies, because truly, there are solutions out there. There are ways that we can improve this. And that's why these hearings are so important for us to talk about that. To Alex's point also, it is true. We should be listening first from the residents, so I think that's something we can start practicing a little bit more. To the residents from my district that came all the way from Reedville to Max and to SB, I call her SB, for testifying here today. You guys are the voices that matter because you are going through real issues, which is why in my office, we really made it a priority to respond to every single person that calls or emails Snowstorms impact everyone. I've seen the cases how it impacts our disability community. I've seen the cases how it impacts a mom with a stroller. Every single day I'm out there making sure that I'm taking pictures for 311 of a block's crosswalk where if it's the Someone with ice that needs to be salted.

So I just want you guys to know that you have my commitment to look at what other municipalities are doing so that we can implement that here in the city of Boston. And I know that my colleagues also are going to prioritize that. And I think that we've heard here today speaks for itself. And I just wanted to thank all of you for the work that you do, not only for snow removal, but I know that there's a partnership here and collaboration between just transportation, accessibility in general. Thank you so much for everything you do. I look forward to continuing this conversation. Let's take care of each other. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Pepén. Let me go to Councilor Worrell.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to everyone who lent their voice to this conversation, whether it was here today or through email. I just want to say thank you. And I do agree with Councilor Pepén is that I've always said That for every question, the community has the answer. So we need to make sure that when we're coming up with any solution, that we prioritize the voices of those who are experiencing what is going on in the city. So thank you so much. Appreciate everyone's voice. and as the lead sponsor for SnowCorps and that initiative. Just shout out to other cities that have it implemented and started up. I want to continue to explore everything that we can do to make sure that Boston has its own Snores Corps model that is making sure that all of our business districts are

All of our high traffic areas, whether it's school, libraries, our MBTA stations, our bus stations, all those sites are clear because we know that making the city accessible to everyone is important after a snowstorm. So thank you again. Looking forward to continuing on this conversation. I would ask the chair if we can create or have a working session on the Snow Corps Initiative. to bring back in interim chief Gove to have that conversation on outlining Next steps to see if we can start to hire emergency workers, independent contractors, expanding the current work that they have so we can, again, make sure that after a snowstorm, Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. And yes, you have my commitment. We can do a working session as soon as we can. With the appropriate staff from the City of Austin to discuss that and also include Councilor Pepén as well. But let's continue to work together. and when we do have that scheduled, we'll make sure we notify everybody so that they can come and talk about these important issues. Councilor Mejia, would you like to give a closing statement?

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair. And I want to thank the lead sponsors for hosting this hearing and bringing so many people to the chamber. And I'll just want to note a few things for the record for those folks who are tuning in, is that this hearing was slated from two to five, which means that from two to five, the goal should have been that the administration is here for the entirety of the time. and not leave because they have to go somewhere. Because if you have to leave, then you can leave someone else in your place. I find it unacceptable that we had to rush through and not allow public testimony because people wanted to identify the fact that they were coming in and out of the Chamber. I don't care. I don't. I'm sorry. I'm not here for that. And so I find it highly unacceptable that I stood here from 2 to 5 and listened to the people and folks stepped in and out of this chamber as though the voices of the people did not matter.

So if you only came here to listen to the administration, then shame on you. So I said what I said and I always do. Lastly, I will end with this, that at the end of the day, right, you pay for our salaries. Your tax dollars pays for the streets that get cleaned or not. You have every right to complain about the things that are not being done And as Councilor Worrell said, you are the ones that have the best solutions because you're the one that is either doing the work or living the realities. And our job is to work in collaboration with community, not in competition with. and so you have my commitment whether I'm a sponsor or not. My goal is to work in collaboration with my colleagues because at the end of the day, the bottom line is is that I do have the biggest mouth on the city council and I'm not afraid to use it.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. I'll give myself one minute instead of the two minutes. I want to say thank you to my City Council colleagues, I want to say thank you to the administration, to the panel that's here, the community panel, and also the testimony from residents across the city. This issue resonated clearly. and it's about how we can work together to improve the basic delivery of city services, how we can show our respect for persons with disabilities in our seniors and also how we can ensure that transportation is not impacted by a snowstorm. It's about working together, it's about respecting each other, it's about listening and that's what I

Thank you very much. I want to say thank you to... Thank you, Cassandra. I want to say thank you to Bill. And I want to say thank you to a good friend of mine at City Council Central Staff, Ron. who did an excellent job working with us during this hearing. Thank you, Ron. This docket... which is docket 0270-0291-0292 The hearing regarding snow removal relief, the creation of a snow core, and the purchasing of snow melters is adjourned. Thank you.