Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Are You Essential? (Inclement Weather Edition)

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Not to send anyone in to ontological fits, but the question for the afternoon seems to be, “are you essential?”(i.e. can you go home now?)

From Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency(MEMA)

“Due to the fast moving snow storm which may leave areas of up to 10 inches of snow statewide through the normal evening commute time, Executive Branch Agencies of state government are releasing all non-emergency personnel on the following schedule: Worcester County and west at 10:45am; East of Worcester County at 11:30am.”

MEMA’s telling private business to send folks home. The Mayor’s holiday party for media is cancelled, as is the Senate holiday party. It’s over, kids.

Answer the question below and tell us who’s keeping their employees in despite the inclement weather:

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Comments

    • Forgive my office-based bias, you are right.

      <

      p>It took me 1hr 45min to get home on a 45 minute normal commute. Shoulda left at 11:30.

  2. Have been since last Friday – second trip to doctor has netted me better/stronger drugs, but still ordered bed rest until Monday or fever goes away, whichever comes first!

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    p>Funny (NOW it’s funny, less so then) story from 1998.  It’s 3:30 PM, I’m in office in State House and hear HIS VOICE – Finneran himself – manning the rarely used PA system.  Said that he was closing the building, we all should go home.  Called boss, toasty back on Cape.  HE said, why don’t I just stay until 5 anyway, get extra work done with the switchboard shut down.  I pointed out to him that if Finneran was worried about getting to DORCHESTER, maybe I had a bad commute coming?    Also pointed out that Finneran was shutting down computer system and electric (which was a lie, but didn’t care).  Grudgingly allowed to leave.  It took me until 11 p.m. – 7 hours – to drive the 90 +/- miles home.  That was the ONLY time I ever snuck into the HOV, or it would have been 1 a.m.!

  3. …I suspect that an “essential state employee” is one who has a designation as such and who is provided with at least a cot on which he or she can sleep at their assigned facilities.

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    p>I’ve actually talked with some of the news people at some of the TV stations here in Boston.  The stations have emergency facilities set up so that their personnel can get up, fit as a fiddle, for their news casts the next morning.

  4. I could go home if I wanted to, and I’m sure I’m “nonessential”, but I work on the red line and leave on the red line and it seems that I might as well stay at the office and get more work done, and perhaps when I do go home there will be fewer people on the T if they’re all leaving now anyway.

    <

    p>How does this “leave early to avoid commute during snowstorm” stuff apply to people whose commute is entirely by subway?

    • The subway often has issues dealing with blizzards. It normally continues to run, but the delays can get bad. But once we have about 3-4 inches of snow, it won’t get any worse. I think they also run the trains more frequently to keep the tracks from freezing. And if you have to wait outside for a train, it can get very cold.

  6. Usually takes about 40 minutes to get home – today it took 3 hours.  The worst was sitting for an hour trying to turn from Burlington Mall Road onto Route 3A – about half a mile from home, but it might as well have been 10 miles.  

  7. in Reading or Wakefield for an hour   By comparison to some of the driving horror stories I guess it wasnt so bad.    It is a train to Haverhill that usually takes 1hour, twenty minutes.    It took two hours 20 minutes.   The big concern is that if we are stuck there too long there will be a problem with the frequently broken bathroom.

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    p> In the end it wasnt that much of a delay but leaves you thinking why it had to be delayed at all and what it will be like when we have a real storm.    Evening train trips home are usually crowded and late–I am one of those commuters that is disgusted that the MBCR got their contract renewed.      

  8. Sky is falling and everybody should leave by noon memo.  well by noon the plows didn’t have a chance to start prepping the roads.  I took the T home from southie to eastie took a spill on the steps of the City owned building I work at and messed up my knee.  

    <

    p>My normal 5 minute drive took 45 minutes via T.  But thats the normal amount of time it takes from eastie to southie on the T which is why I normally drive.

    • I’m skeptical.  I’m not saying that the drive takes you longer than the T, but five minutes?  That’s two red traffic lights.

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      p>For kicks, try this: start “the clock” when you get in to your car, and stop “the clock” when you’re out of your car.  Use a watch or some other accurate timepiece.  Methinks five minutes to drive anywhere in Boston — anywhere! — is typically an underestimate.

      • I’m not skeptical.  Last night was the worst.  I live in West Newton, off of Moddy street.  What was less than a five minute drive on a sunday morning took a half hour, crawling down a portion of Moody Street just blocks from my house.  Cars were just getting stuck left and right on the slightest incline.  It seemed to be worst at stop lights (turning red at a major thoroughfare for no reason, without a police presence to wave people through).  People would stop, get stuck, and by the time they got rolling, the first car would be through the light and the light would turn red.

        <

        p>Happened over and over.  It was rage inducing.

        • I’m not skeptical of the delays.  I’m skeptical of the claim that when there are normal weather conditions that he can drive from Eastie to Southie in five minutes.

      • it’s 3 miles and there are only three street lights.  One at the entrance to the ted and two in southie/EDIC.  The knee still hurts.  

    • i hope your knee is ok.  i suppose the only good thing about falling in winter is the immediate application of an atmospheric ice pack to the sore spot!

  10. My usual commute: I walk a half mile from my office to the station at Back Bay (10 minutes), take the train out to Natick (40 minutes), and then walk a mile to my house (20 minutes).

    <

    p>Yesterday, I left my office at 2:30 to walk to Back Bay (15 minutes) to catch an earlier train which, of course, was late (20 minutes) and then ended up being overloaded at South Station that it did not stop at Back Bay. I was left waiting for the next train (1 hour 45 minutes), which in turn was late (1 hour), but then ran at its usual clip out to Natick (40 minutes) where I had to slog the mile home (30 minutes).

    <

    p>So my usual commute of 1 hour and ten minutes ended up being 4 and a half hours.

    <

    p>In retrospect, it was kind of predictable. There are, between 4:30 and 6:30, six trains that run from South Station west on the Framingham line. Six trains, most of them usually quite full. Yesterday, six trains’ worth of people left work at 2:30 and tried to fit on one train. Not suprising it didn’t work.

    <

    p>The T should consider making up a snow schedule. Should it look like a major storm is going to screw up the evening commute, they should consider an alternative schedule that would run more trains earlier in the day (and not so many later on). If there had been at least one train between 2:45 and 4:30, it would have been a godsend to so many commuters.

    <

    p>Town governments close early. School systems close early and bus the kids home on an alternate schedule. The T mixes things up for Patriots’ Day and the Fourth… why not a snow schedule for the train system?

    <

    p>I know, it’ll never happen…

  12. I wonder if there were permanent problems or just bad breaks at work here — as I recall, there was a November day in the ’60s when Boston went into total gridlock, and it never happened again.

    <

    p>I do think that enforcement of a “don’t block the box” policy (as in NYC) at intersections could make some difference. Otherwise, though, the worst problems were not under the control of the City of Boston.

    <

    p>Heading north, I saw two problems that will be difficult to address.  One is the perennial issue in Cambridge and Somerville, which don’t have adequate road capacity in the places where they have traffic.  In particular, the outflow of cars from the Kendall Square area overwhelms westbound capacity and blocks traffic coming from Boston.  The other problem is that I93N, useful as it may be in getting to New Hampshire,is remarkably unhelpful in terms of movement within Greater Boston (in part because 128 is dysfunctional at heavy loads) — so everybody piles onto the road, and then realizes that it doesn’t actually go anywhere.

    <

    p>About once every five years, we really need the Inner Belt.

    • Cambridge and Somerville don’t want the traffic. Those streets are not going to be widened, because if there was room for more cars then more people would drive through the cities. They have enough capacity for the residents and make it annoying and slow for anyone who is just driving through so that they will choose to go some other way.

  13. Normal commute: 40 minutes

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    p>Last night: 450 minutes.

    <

    p>Yep. Seven and a half hours.  I left the office at 1:30 and walked through the front door at 9pm.

    <

    p>About five and a half hours was spent in a half mile stretch of Blue Hill Ave, by Curry College.

  14. But apparently not.  My normal 2 1/2 mile, 10-15 minute drive took 3 1/2 hours yesterday.

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    p>You cannot drive anywhere, anywhere at all in Worcester without needing to go up a hill.  Every one of these hills was heavily populated with nitwits with (i) bald tires, or (ii) who decided to creep up the hill, or to stop! halfway up, and then got stuck, blocking traffic in both directions.  While it was snowing two inches an hour, so that once the nitwits were out of the way, ten other cars that could have made it up an hour ago now got stuck as well.

    <

    p>Mix in that all businesses dismissed around the same time, just after the schools did, and you have a recipe for DPW Commissioner Moylan’s worst nightmare.  That poor bastard must have had a ka-rappy day yesterday.

    • …I worked in City Manager McGrath’s office.  EVERYBODY wanted their street attended to.

      <

      p>Lady calls, demanding that Arbor Vitae St. be plowed.  Looked at it on map – cul de sac, going straight up, about 10 houses.   Told her that DPW had to concentrate on major arteries like Park Ave., etc., would be seen to in time, etc.  She began to cry and I asked what was wrong.  She replied, “My HUSBAND is dead…and they can’t get the HEARSE up the hiiiiilllll….”  Called DPW, told them to go plow street at once, they politely enquired if I was out of my mind, told them I worked for The MANAGER….and all was taken care of at once.

  15. Seems like the day-after round-up includes some passing around the blame.

    <

    p>

    Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who accused the state of being ill prepared for the storm, met with city department heads to talk about what went wrong.

     

    <

    p>Menino’s blaming the state and Patrick’s not happy with the employers.

    <

    p>

    “People were asked to leave early, and they didn’t,” Patrick said at a press conference. “The decisions made, particularly by private employers, was to not release as soon as we would have liked. It’s not to lay the fault at private employers, but it’s very hard in a practical manner to plow the roads when everybody is on them.”

     

    <

    p>This is a hard issue- how to have our government best respond to some things that are beyond its control, like snow. And the very human tendency not to take preventative measurers, like leaving before it’s started to snow.  And in some ways, I feel like it’s a little pointless to blame different agencies. But, there are some things beyond the weather that they are in control of, like when you alert folks, where you plow first, and what sort of examples you set by your own policies with state employees. And then, what kind of example does it set when Boston Public Schools doesn’t make good decisions regarding the safety of both the students and the employees?

    <

    p>

    “One of the agencies criticized Thursday was Boston Public Schools, where hundreds of the district’s 56,000 students were stranded in classrooms for more than four hours. Unlike some other districts across the state, Boston Public Schools did not dismiss students early and buses got caught on clogged roads.

    “I want to apologize to all Boston Public Schools families and staff for the significant delays created by the snowstorm,” Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson she said in a statement sent yesterday to parents and staff. “The safety of our students remained our top priority throughout the day. I’m very grateful to principals, teachers, and other staff who remained in their schools well after the usual dismissal time to supervise students and ensure their safety until they were picked up.”.”

    <

    p>It wasn’t just the storm that stranded students; it was that BPS didn’t heed that state’s warning.
     

    • This morning said that some of these kids didn’t get off the bus until 9 or 9:30 pm.  Imagine siiting on a school bus for 7 hours.  I didn’t hear where this was, because I was still half-asleep.

    • …unless the employer pushes them out the door, there isn’t a whole lot that s/he can do to make them leave.

      <

      p>On the other hand, putting everyone out on the streets at the same time is a recipe for disaster.  My father’s employer, GE Evendale OH, staggered work times at 15 minute intervals in the mornings and afternoons.  They had some 15000 employees.  It wasn’t optimum, but it was the best they could do.

    • Everybody knew there was a snow storm coming.  So, why not:

      <

      p>1.  Run a very dense T schedule.  More commuter trains throughout the day, and more streetcars/subways.
      2.  Tell people that the T is on a “snow day” schedule, resulting in more trains.
      3.  Run it well, and document that the commute time is shorter and safer.  Then, advertise.

      <

      p>Sure, it ain’t perfect, but the goal isn’t to get 100% of drivers on mass transit — the goal is to get another 5-10% on mass transit.  Even that small amount would have a tremendous impact, due to all sorts of results in queueing and network theory.

      <

      p>Another method: on days where more than x” of snow is expected between the hours of y and z, you charge an extra tax of $t on each parking spot in the city.  Making parking more expensive will help people decide to take the MBTA or carpool on those days.  I’m not advocating for this method, but I do think it would have a positive impact on traffic.

  16. from 495 to Charlestown.  I don’t usually drive, but I had a meeting in Westborough in the morning.  Every road I tried (Pike, 128, Rte. 16, Rte. 9, Storrow) was gridlocked, not to mention local streets around Needham/Wellesley/Newton.  First plow I saw all day was clearing the sidewalk around the Public Garden, which was probably nice for the 3 or 4 people walking, but not so nice for the 100-200 cars backed up on Arlington Street.

    <

    p>I honestly don’t ask for much in terms of city services, but when streets in my neighborhood looked like a war zone, with cars stuck everywhere, it made my blood boil.  Can’t wait to go dig out from the snowbank I parked in last night.

    <

    p>What I don’t understand is why they didn’t have sanders/salt trucks out on the roads prior to the storm.  I’ve lived in places that know how to deal with snow.  Boston is not one of those places.

    • They can’t win when the timing is as it was yesterday.  If the plows were waiting, and the storm was a little slower than expected, there would be Waste of taxpayer dollars as plows sit idle for hours” headlines.

      <

      p>They couldn’t plow yesterday because everyone left everything at the same time, and the plows were in the same traffic as you.

  17. …but the fact is that I did.  The absence of frequent and efficient public transportation in the Boston area is one of the primary reasons for the gridlock on the roads.

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    p>I’ll refrain from repeating my mantra about Munich’s public transport system.  But for a city the size of Boston not to have a decent public transport system is a crime.

    <

    p>NB: It was only a couple of days after I moved to the area in 1979 that I experienced a similar experience to those described here.  I wondered, why did I bother moving here?

      • …if I knew then what I know now, and if my then partner, now spouse, had resided in our little hovel just west of Munich, I’d have bypassed DC, CT, MA, etc.  But he didn’t then.

        <

        p>If you aren’t interested in how others have addressed problems that you are currently in need of addressing, continue with your “We’re Number 1!” mantra.  It isn’t going to help you address your problems, though.  But our little 65qm apartment over there is big enough for me.

        • I don’t chant “We’re Number 1” and I am open to any ideas for improving anything.

          <

          p>You just don’t do your ideas justice, the way you deliver them.

          <

          p>Really, Raj. It’s not that people aren’t open to your seemingly endless ideas of how we can do things better if they were more German or European of just plain other than they are here. I’m pleasantly surprised at the willingness of others to consider different potential solutions (relative to folks in the real world) It’s just that you’re such a condescending pompous jerk when you deliver these ideas that people don’t care to give them their full consideration.

          <

          p>The media is the message. You’re not a very popular media.

          <

          p>You seem to not understand this. Which is ironic, given how your chief criticism of others here is that they are unable to see beyond their own perspective.

      • …and that’s why Munich has an excellent (and expanding) public transportation system.

        <

        p>BTW, if you want to know where “old Munich” (the bombed out city) is, it’s under the OlympiaStadt.

          • Teufelsberg translates directly to “devil’s mountain”  That is/was in West Berlin, and it is the remains of the no-so-old city of Berlin.  And, the Teufelsberg is still there–I’ve seen it.

            • Teufelsberg was created y bulldozing the rubble into a pile.  You seemed to suggest that the foundation of the Olympic Stadium in Munich is built the same way, and I was asking it is indeed was.

              • I kne what you were referring to.  Long answer regarding Munich and the OlympiaStadt, yes.

                <

                p>The OlympiaStadt isn’t a huge mound, though.   Apparently, Munich didn’t have enough rubble to heap into a mound.  Or maybe the Bavarians were more able to spread the rubble around.

                <

                p>All of this is tongue-in-cheek, of course.

                <

                p>One thing that is not particularly interesting, but it may be to some is that the TeufelsBerg in Berlin is home to more than a few telephone towers.  And the famous tower in Munich that sits atop the rubble is also a telephone tower.

  18. there really was no excuse for the way last Thursday’s storm situation was managed.  Granted, Thursday’s storm dumped a lot of snow in this area, but it was nothing whatsoever like the Blizzard of ’78, where roughly 3 feet of snow was dumped on Boston and the Bay State, generally, and people were stranded…for days at their workplace and/or schools, or whatever.  
    With more foresight, and more cops out there to control the situation, Thursday’s city and statewide gridlock could’ve been minimized and controlled to manageable proportions.  The fact that people got home at 8, 9, or ten at night is totally outrageous.  

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