Update on 2/18 – Several public works crews were out on Military Road today. A police officer was posted at Military Road and 26th Road this afternoon to help Taylor Elementary students cross the street.
Huge boulders of ice, snow and road filth cover the sidewalks along Military Road in the Donaldson Run section of Arlington, near Taylor Elementary School, forcing pedestrians to walk dangerously close to fast-moving traffic on the busy commuter route.
Over the weekend, the county asked residents to help kids get back to school by clearing the sidewalks in front of their homes. But some residents, fearing retribution for not following through on the request, are asking: how do mere mortals move six-foot-high mountains of icy snow?
“It would take a battalion” to clear the sidewalk, one Military Road resident said.
“I don’t think there’s a way anybody can realistically take care of this,” said another resident. In 23 years of living in Arlington “we never got this much snow piled on the sidewalk.”
Residents we talked to were particularly frustrated by the fact that the sidewalk snow mountains were the result of the county’s own snow removal efforts. After clearing the main roadway, residents said, plows cleared the adjacent bike lane, pushing the snow, ice and dirt onto the narrow sidewalk.
The county has warned that plows, by their very nature, will push snows from the road onto sidewalks and driveways. Residents say they understand and appreciate the snow removal challenges, but add that they should not be responsible for removing such massive amounts of plowed precipitation.
The county, for its part, has been actively treating some walkways. Officials admit, however, that they don’t have the resources to get to every trouble spot as quickly as they would like.
(more…)
After the snowiest winter on record, signs of spring finally arrived this weekend.
