By Sebastian Atkins-Taylor
BOSTON, Mass. – This winter has been quite the surprise, leaving many places unable to deal the amount of snow that has fallen in their city or town. Places like New York City, New York, Bangor, Maine and Hartford, Connecticut have seen record numbers. However, this snow has affected one city more than the rest: Boston.
By the numbers Boston, Massachusetts has had its second snowiest winter in the city’s history according to CBS.com. Boston has seen approximately 101 inches of snowfall. This has past the record from 2004, which had 89 inches, and 1948, which had 96 inches of snowfall. To this date there is only one year to have had more snow than this current winter, and that was in 1995 when the city was blanketed under 107 inches of snowfall. The problem is that this winter isn’t over yet.
All this snow has caused many issues for New England’s biggest city. The main concern is where to put it all. Boston is set up like it was in colonial days for the most part, especially in the inner city. That means cobbled walks, one-way streets and round-abouts, also known as rotaries, abound. The snow is piling up on sidewalks and the ends of driveways. In an attempt to take on this large task, the city of Boston has taken to filling space savers and shipping the snow out of the city.
The removal of the snow is not the only issues Boston has to deal with. During these storms the city of Boston has had to implement parking bans all over, forcing locals to park further away from their work and stores in the city. This is made even worse by the fact that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has been delayed and even cancelled in some areas. The Red and Green lines have seen delays this winter, while the ferry has been closed for some time now, just reopening its services on the 26th of February.
Devin Gibbs lives in Medford, Boston, Massachusetts and takes the MBTA bus and subway into downtown Boston for work every day. “It has just been awful. It’s seemed to have ruined everything. It’s caused the city to shut down for days. Everything stops, including the MBTA. The public transit takes over twice the amount of time to get around,” said Gibbs. “It’s used to take me 50 or so minutes to get to work. Now it takes me nearly two hours.” The people with their own vehicles aren’t faring any better. “There are some cars that are buried. And I mean buried. There’s no way they’re getting out until spring,” said Gibbs.
Boston has been looking at how states north of it handle large amounts of snow to better prepare themselves for whatever Mother Nature has next, according to city officials. This snow has also left the city in debt. This year the city snow removal budget was about 18 million dollars. At this point Boston has used up nearly twice that amount, according to WBUR.
