This is an intersection where there is normally a crossing guard because many children cross 95th St. here to go to and from school. There is currently no safe access between the north and south sides of 95th St. at this intersection, no way to go from North Beverly to South Beverly on Damen without walking in the street on both 95th and Damen. There is no access for CTA passengers to go from the street to the sidewalk, and no way for library patrons coming from the south to take a direct and safe path.
There is nothing acceptable about this. I've e-mailed and called the alderman's office to complain. If this isn't fixed by tomorrow, I will call again. I hope that others will, too.
8 comments:
I got a response from Ginger Rugai's office saying that Streets & San had been notified. I hope this is cleared by sometime tomorrow.
The streets around Cassell school are not any better. They are quite dangerous. I could not believe it when I dropped my son off this morning.
I would think that area would be a priority.
You should report that, too. Kids should be able to get to school safely.
When I first read this post, my immediate thought was "
Are ya kiddin' me??".....Really - these are your concerns and complaints two days after the 3rd worst blizzard in Chicago history? I looked at your pictures and thought it was a great illustration of the fantastic job the city did, considering the scope of that storm. By Friday, side streets were still being cleared in some areas of the city, and your complaint is that curbs weren't cleared on 95th St? Amazing...
Do you think that the safety of pedestrians at a significant intersection is trivial? You obviously don't walk anywhere.
When snow removal equipment was obviously in use at these locations, not taking a few more minutes to cut openings was inexcusable.
I went by there today and found that there is now an opening in the snow wall in front of the library, but the wall by the Trinity community center remains. This means that pedestrians have to walk in the street on Damen near 95th, a location that often has sigifnicant traffic.
With a little bit of extra planning and instruction, this snow removal effort could have effectively served the purposes of both drivers and pedestrians.
I agree that the first priority during and immediately after the storm should be making the streets passable to allow emergency response and let people get to work. For many 19th ward residents, the "getting people to work" part is obviously about making sure that first responders who live here are available to the communities where they are assigned.
When I took the pictures in this post, more than 48 hours had passed since the end of the storm. Streets were not in great condition, but they were passable. On Friday, getting regular people back to work and creating safe routes for children to walk to school should have become a higher priority.
Many of the people who ride Metra from our neighborhood walk to their nearest station. For many of us, having a station within walking distance was a priority in choosing to buy houses where we did. With so many corners blocked by the plows, and a few homeowners in critical locations who did not clear their sidewalks, it will be mean that a LOT of people will be walking in the street. This is unsafe all the way around. They're at greater risk of getting hit, and drivers are at greater risk of having accidents trying to avoid hitting them.
A friend made the suggestion that a program should be developed to allow high school students to do snow shoveling as one of their community service options. I think this is could be a win-win for the community.
A friend offered these comments:
We clear a path in front of our next door neighbor's house as he is out of town every winter. We have to take our time because we don't have a snowblower.
I cleared an area in the street in front of our house even though we can park cars on our driveway. The corners are particularly bad. I've have noticed that you need to walk in the street to get on a bus or have thigh high boots to get across the wall of snow to cross the street.
In the past I have given this a lot of thought. I've also considered elderly neighbors or people who are ill and cannot handle the snow removal but do not have the financial means to pay someone else for snow removal.
This is a heavily Catholic neighborhood. We have plenty of high school students. Could we possibly set up a system to award credit for community service to able-bodied strong young people to clear snow on school routes, train and bus access routes and for the sick and elderly? Many of them need community service credits for Confirmation and also for High School graduation.
What is wrong with some of the people in this community? When I was growing up, the kids in my family shoveled the snow for the elderly neighbors. Other people on the block had their children do it too. My mother made it clear that for those particular neighbors, we should never take money. We didn't get anything out of it other than the satisfaction of helping someone who needed it. We didn't do it for confirmation credit or any other kind of credit, though I don't object to people earning service hours for shoveling. I'm just noting the difference between parents today and my parents. It got to the point that we didn't need to be told to shovel for the older neighbors. We just did it. What's with the neighbors on 105th Street and elsewhere?
Incidentally, the Catholics aren't the only people in the community who can help. Protestants can shovel too.
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