I took the below pics and short video this past Thursday, February 20 while on my afternoon walk. The snow storm we had, that left the icy wet mess, occurred 5-days prior on Saturday February 15.
Yes, the temps kept everything frozen solid for about a week and if folks failed to clear the mess when it first fell, there was little to no chance to remove it after. And yes, last week was school vacation week here in Massachusetts, so perhaps not as critical a situation but keep in mind that sidewalks and crosswalks are used by more than just grade school kids.
The sidewalks and crosswalks leading up to the entrance of the grade school are blocked and impassable with mounts of plowed snow and ice! I saw NO effort from the town or the school to work on addressing these issues, NONE!
The crosswalk pic below runs across the entrance to the school. As you can see the entrance still has snow across most of it but more troubling is how access to the sidewalk is blocked with a piled high mound of ice and snow. Folks needed to walk in the street to navigate around this blockage and most drivers fail to slow down or cede room as they speed on by, making this VERY dangerous -
The main crosswalk, that crosses the busy street and is heavily used, blocked on both sides -
View of the opposite side of the pic above -
Yes, it was a big, messy storm mixed with snow and rain that quickly froze over and I understand that during the event the goal isn't to clear every nook and cranny, however, following the storm and to take advantage of it being school vacation I would have thought the Franklin DPW would have put more of an effort into circling back to critical areas, like schools, to ensure safe access.
Frustratingly, and in my opinion, the town of Franklin, the DPW and highway departments do a half-assed, shoddy job with most of their responsibilities. Seems employees in general these days take little to no pride in their work and instead look to simply check the box that says "complete" regardless of how it was done, AND there also seems to be NO checks and balances or oversight from management on working (supposedly) being performed.
Click the link below for a short video I took navigating and highlighting this mess. Some profanity may have been used in the making of said video -
The good news, as I write this today, Mother Nature has stepped in to resolve the issues. The last couple of days have reached temps in the 40s, so quite a bit of melting has occurred. Temps are expected to near 50 the next couple of days, so much of the snow and these dangerous problems will go down the (storm) drain...
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