The calendar makes little sense up here. Spring is announced, but it never jives with the landscape. Starting in March, the city switches to the heinous "street sweeping" scam, whereby they ostensibly clean the street with a large machine with a rotating brush. Twice a week. I've never seen the machines do anything but redistribute the gunk in the gutter into the middle of the street, but if you forget to move your car, that'll be sixty bucks please. Exceptionally this year, it has been postponed since we're still snow covered and well below freezing. I grew up in a place that didn't have street sweepers and yet the streets remained relatively clean. For decades. No special days, no bogus machine, no tickets for citizens with time tracking troubles. At least here they do it during the day. When I lived in Long Beach, our street's parking restriction began at 4am, so if you forgot about what day street sweeping was before you went to bed, you were screwed. I used to fantasize about running for city office on the platform of eliminating street sweeping. Who wouldn't vote for that candidate?
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Springtime in Montreal
The calendar makes little sense up here. Spring is announced, but it never jives with the landscape. Starting in March, the city switches to the heinous "street sweeping" scam, whereby they ostensibly clean the street with a large machine with a rotating brush. Twice a week. I've never seen the machines do anything but redistribute the gunk in the gutter into the middle of the street, but if you forget to move your car, that'll be sixty bucks please. Exceptionally this year, it has been postponed since we're still snow covered and well below freezing. I grew up in a place that didn't have street sweepers and yet the streets remained relatively clean. For decades. No special days, no bogus machine, no tickets for citizens with time tracking troubles. At least here they do it during the day. When I lived in Long Beach, our street's parking restriction began at 4am, so if you forgot about what day street sweeping was before you went to bed, you were screwed. I used to fantasize about running for city office on the platform of eliminating street sweeping. Who wouldn't vote for that candidate?
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21 comments:
That looks so cold. Spring will last a few days here and then it's straight into summer, but after seeing that pic, I won't complain.
We have street sweepers but no fines for not moving. The sweeper just goes around the parked cars and some areas never get swept. The main job of our street sweeper is to follow the 4th of July parade and clean up the horse shit. They have to go over it two or three times. The first pass just smears it around and makes the area smell to high heaven. The crowd dissipates quickly. Ed
We have fines for not moving the cars here in NYC but the street sweepers are very effective and leave the curbs nice and clean. Maybe you should run for city office on the platform of better sweeping machines for Montreal.
For all the good the street sweeping machines do (not a lot) the city could hire a few more guys with those sharp sticks to pick up stray garbage. Ever notice it's always windy on recycling day?!
Great picture you posted. I am astonished that people left their bikes parked there all winter (?)
Word verification: fgmhelb
It's 74 and sunny here in NC.
(Yes, you may call me a 'bitch'.)
We have street sweepers here too but they don't even bother coming out until at least May or June. And that picture looks like here this morning, the skies took another dump on us last night and there's about six more inches. March has been the worst month of the entire winter so far!
first-- props to lattegirl for her word verification verification. I've wanted to do that for a while now-- it's random and not all at the same time.
next-- snow. Don't make me post the pics I took yesterday of budding trees and blooming flowers and green, green grass.
It's allergy season for me and I am in my own snow-less hell.
"qctvogo"
We've had sunny skies here, Torn, but we still have two feet of snow to melt. Streets in town have so much sand and dust on them, they are clear of snow but it will be awhile before anyone bothers to clean them. They've started to pack the potholes a bit though.
Spring my ass.
OMG, that picture is horrible, it's like bicycle genocide! I am going to hug one of my 4 adopted bikes right now! I hope there will be a telethon on CBC to raise money to save these bikes from such a horrific death.
Spring is certainly here in YVR. I spent 5 hours on my bike yesterday, riding in the sunlit farmland. It was awesome.
Hug a bike today people.
We just got another eight inches of snow. I am thinking of changing my name to Nanook.
We have no parking every night between 2 and 5 a.m. for street cleaning and/or plowing. The only thing I associate the street sweepers with is that the stupid truck always wakes me up.
We got 3 inches of snow last night. Not as much as you, but it still makes me crabby. I am so done with the snow!
I think that was an excellent point you made about the streets of your youth being sweeper free and also trash free. Of course it was the suburbs, during a time when people didn't litter as willingly. But I'm shocked that there is a street sweeper that actually works. I have never seen one that was effective.
I've been wanting it to warm up here, but I guess I can't complain. While it isn't all that warm yet, we certainly don't have snow! So I'll shut up now. :)
I greeted the Vernal Equinox with a small celebration. Now the light can vanquish the dark for six months and then start to retreat again.
I can also see signs of the precess of earth in the night sky. I love it. My favorite seasons are spring and summer. Oh summer, I love summer.
I've never liked winter though the winters here in Rhode Island seem milder and milder each year. There's no precipitation on the ground, hasn't been for nearly a month now.
Happy Easter Richard and Serge. I will eat the traditional Ham. Today is my brothers birthday. Happy 48th to him. Ed
To quote Margaret Cho' mother, "That's too cold!"
LOL @ RJ and Don (bicycle genocide!)
kfjmn
You have this chicken's vote!
I'm guessing no one has ridden those bikes for a while.
I'm amazed at the mountains of snow I've seen in pictures from around your area and into the midwest. I saw a pic the other day of a cleared road with a 10-12 foot high sheer cliff of snow beside it. Holy Shit, people!!! How do you work and live around that much snow? You posted a pic recently of your back yard and the little bit of path that Sara had to use. You've had a lot more snow since then. Does she still have any room to go outside? Hell, maybe that's why she peed on the rug the other day.
Today so far we have had snow, sleet, and right now it is sunny. This morning my neighbour said to me as he cleaned off his car, "Happy Easter blizzard!". They haven't started cleaning the roads yet. Maybe in June.
Love the bike photo! So cool.
Street sweeping sounds fine (and is likely necessary on occasion) but twice a week sounds ridiculously frequent. I was thinking more like once a month.
Mark :-)
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