Worcester Residents Rate City’s Snow Removal as “Terrible”

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The snow storm that hit Worcester Monday was both predicted and dropped only about 6 inches, but City residents rate the clean up by the city as poor.

Hundreds of Worcester resident raised issues about the quality of the City of Worcester’s clean up and voiced concerns about public safety as a result of the poor quality of the plowing. Residents identified that many hills weren't properly treated with sand and salt leaving drivers exposed to dangerous conditions.

More than 150 residents ranked the Worcester response on a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being bare pavement. Self-selecting respondents scored the clean up for this past storm on average as a 2.2.

One resident said, “If the city took as much time plowing and salting the rest of the city as they do around city hall no one would complain. Driving to work the last two days and the roads are awful, but once you get to city hall you are down to the pavement. Why can't the city have all the roads look like that? at least the main roads anyway.”

Residents voiced frustration about the overall system, “They should revamp the system put someone in there that knows what there doing. Calling the 9291300 # is a waste of time and effort.”

Each Storm Worcester Has Struggled

City Manager Ed Augustus has come under fire for each of the two previous storms as well and both times had to issue public apologies.

The first storm, the City of Worcester did not treat the streets and many hills creating a traffic nightmare and dozens of accidents. Augustus was forced to issue Worcester residents an apology. “We made a judgement call that unfortunately turned out to be the wrong one. As a result, many of the City's streets were not in the condition our taxpayers have the right to expect,” said Augustus in his apology issued on December 31st.

Then in late January, Worcester issued a parking ban at 11:30 pm after most city residents had gone to bed. The city then ticketed hundreds of cars and an undisclosed number were towed.

Within days, Augustus had to issue yet another apology: “In an effort to thoroughly clear the city’s streets during Sunday’s snowstorm, a parking ban was declared at 11:30 pm Sunday. Because it did not become apparent that plowing would be necessary until late Sunday, the timing of the declaration did not allow residents ample time to move their vehicles or the City the time required to communicate this overnight through all media and social media outlets. Therefore, general forgiveness is being granted for all tickets issued in relation to the parking ban declared between January 17th and 18th. People who received tickets may simply ignore them.”

Not Getting Better

In comparison to last year, this winter has been moderate and the snow fall has been just a fraction of last year, but due to some retirements in public works coupled with poor management by City Hall, each storm turns into a fiasco according to business leaders and residents. "They wait until late to plow and then plow 10 feet from the curb. I don't feel like shoveling the street in addition to my driveway. There is no way a fire engine would be able so get up this hill!" said a Worcester resident.