Snow, and where to put it
This has been a snowy week. It started snowing Tuesday night, leaving about 5 inches over night, and continued to snow a few more inches Wednesday day and night, with an inch or less Thursday day just to top things off.
All of this wouldn't be a problem, or even really worth mentioning, were it not for the snow plow driver Wednesday morning.
I've only been through one other MN winter, and by watching what other people did, and talking to friends in the office, it appeared that thing to do was to throw your snow into the street. Presumably the plows and cars deal with it and that's that.
For the most part I throw the snow in the direction of the wind, which puts most of it onto my lawn. However, for the sidewalk and driveway apron, this puts a lot of it on the street. I don't really see this as an issue since the city's plows put a lot of the snow from the street onto my driveway's apron. It's a winter game of cat and mouse.
Apparently the guy driving the plow sees things differently. As I was out throwing the two foot tall and three foot wide wall of compacted snow that he left on my driveway's apron, he came back to plow the other side of the street. I saw him gesturing at the snow I had put on the street and I waved back to him, blissfully ignorant of his anger. However, it was pretty clear that he wasn't waving at me when he came back and re-plowed my side of the street, much closer and much faster than the first time. Since most of the snow from my apron was thrown past my driveway, this did nothing but put a thin film of snow onto my apron. However, he came back with so much speed that snow was thrown up and over onto the sidewalk. Clearly he was pissed.
Later, I watched my neighbors, all of whom came out after the plow had gone by. Most of them threw their snow into the street, unless they were shoveling, in which case they put it beside their driveway in a large mound (some of the mounds are at least 5' tall). I decided that I should really check with the city of Cottage Grove to see what the "official" rules are.
Cottage Grove has their code searchable from their website and I was able to find section 7-1-3, Prohibited Snow and Ice Deposits. Section A seems to the most applicable:
A. Unless approved by the director of public works of the city, it shall be unlawful to deposit snow removed from private property on public property, including boulevard areas; except, that snow removed from boulevard areas of driveways and sidewalks may be placed on adjacent boulevard areas.
Except this says that the boulevard (which is from the property line to the street, including the sidewalk and the grass between it and the street) is public property. This would mean that I'm just moving snow from one part of public property to another part of public property (the street), which isn't disallowed.
Section C also seems to be interesting:
C. Removal operations shall in no manner interfere with the use of public streets, nor shall snow be accumulated or deposited by motor-driven equipment in such a manner as to interfere with visibility at intersections or curves of public streets of the city. (1971 Code § 22-5)
One could argue that putting a bunch of snow on the street interferes with its use, but the snow distributed evenly over the street was less than an inch thick, so that seems unlikely (though I'm sure someone would argue the point). I generally try to stop my throwing activity when a car drives by, so I'm good on that point. Though, on the other hand, I'm clearly free to shovel all the snow I want to onto the street.
But, anyway, I decided that I didn't need to get the city's plow drivers pissed at me, so I'd better figure out what to do.
A little more checking into the definition of things shows that the boulevard was expressly made for the purpose of "snow storage":
BOULEVARD: The portion of the public street right of way between the back curb line and the property line for uses such as snow storage, sidewalk, utilities, street light and traffic or other signage and potential widening of roadways.
So, now the game becomes how to do I get as much snow as I can from the sidewalks and apron onto the boulevard without getting too much onto the street? Well, if the wind cooperates, it's not too hard, though I still need to use the shovel a bit to fully clear the apron, the sidewalk's snow isn't too hard to get onto the boulevard.
The real bummer in all of this is that I used to clear the whole sidewalk on my block (it's a short block), throwing all the snow into the street. However, since that's not an option, and section B of 7-1-3 says:
B. Snow removed from private property may not be deposited upon other private property without the consent of the owner thereof. (1971 Code § 22-4; amd. 2000 Code)
I never talk to my neighbors so I won't be asking their permission to throw the snow onto their lawns any time soon. I'm just going to stop cleaning everyone's sidewalk. Oh well. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
All of this wouldn't be a problem, or even really worth mentioning, were it not for the snow plow driver Wednesday morning.
I've only been through one other MN winter, and by watching what other people did, and talking to friends in the office, it appeared that thing to do was to throw your snow into the street. Presumably the plows and cars deal with it and that's that.
For the most part I throw the snow in the direction of the wind, which puts most of it onto my lawn. However, for the sidewalk and driveway apron, this puts a lot of it on the street. I don't really see this as an issue since the city's plows put a lot of the snow from the street onto my driveway's apron. It's a winter game of cat and mouse.
Apparently the guy driving the plow sees things differently. As I was out throwing the two foot tall and three foot wide wall of compacted snow that he left on my driveway's apron, he came back to plow the other side of the street. I saw him gesturing at the snow I had put on the street and I waved back to him, blissfully ignorant of his anger. However, it was pretty clear that he wasn't waving at me when he came back and re-plowed my side of the street, much closer and much faster than the first time. Since most of the snow from my apron was thrown past my driveway, this did nothing but put a thin film of snow onto my apron. However, he came back with so much speed that snow was thrown up and over onto the sidewalk. Clearly he was pissed.
Later, I watched my neighbors, all of whom came out after the plow had gone by. Most of them threw their snow into the street, unless they were shoveling, in which case they put it beside their driveway in a large mound (some of the mounds are at least 5' tall). I decided that I should really check with the city of Cottage Grove to see what the "official" rules are.
Cottage Grove has their code searchable from their website and I was able to find section 7-1-3, Prohibited Snow and Ice Deposits. Section A seems to the most applicable:
A. Unless approved by the director of public works of the city, it shall be unlawful to deposit snow removed from private property on public property, including boulevard areas; except, that snow removed from boulevard areas of driveways and sidewalks may be placed on adjacent boulevard areas.
Except this says that the boulevard (which is from the property line to the street, including the sidewalk and the grass between it and the street) is public property. This would mean that I'm just moving snow from one part of public property to another part of public property (the street), which isn't disallowed.
Section C also seems to be interesting:
C. Removal operations shall in no manner interfere with the use of public streets, nor shall snow be accumulated or deposited by motor-driven equipment in such a manner as to interfere with visibility at intersections or curves of public streets of the city. (1971 Code § 22-5)
One could argue that putting a bunch of snow on the street interferes with its use, but the snow distributed evenly over the street was less than an inch thick, so that seems unlikely (though I'm sure someone would argue the point). I generally try to stop my throwing activity when a car drives by, so I'm good on that point. Though, on the other hand, I'm clearly free to shovel all the snow I want to onto the street.
But, anyway, I decided that I didn't need to get the city's plow drivers pissed at me, so I'd better figure out what to do.
A little more checking into the definition of things shows that the boulevard was expressly made for the purpose of "snow storage":
BOULEVARD: The portion of the public street right of way between the back curb line and the property line for uses such as snow storage, sidewalk, utilities, street light and traffic or other signage and potential widening of roadways.
So, now the game becomes how to do I get as much snow as I can from the sidewalks and apron onto the boulevard without getting too much onto the street? Well, if the wind cooperates, it's not too hard, though I still need to use the shovel a bit to fully clear the apron, the sidewalk's snow isn't too hard to get onto the boulevard.
The real bummer in all of this is that I used to clear the whole sidewalk on my block (it's a short block), throwing all the snow into the street. However, since that's not an option, and section B of 7-1-3 says:
B. Snow removed from private property may not be deposited upon other private property without the consent of the owner thereof. (1971 Code § 22-4; amd. 2000 Code)
I never talk to my neighbors so I won't be asking their permission to throw the snow onto their lawns any time soon. I'm just going to stop cleaning everyone's sidewalk. Oh well. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
posted by Mark at 6:52 PM
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