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EDITORIAL
OP-ED; Storm of criticism is not warranted
Thomas M. Keane Jr.

02/26/2003
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
(Copyright 2003)

It's a week after the Snowstorm of the Century (OK, OK, three years into a century, that's an easy mark to hit) and it's time to assess: How bad was it?

And, of course, who can we blame?

The answer to the first question: It depends.

Snow fell Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, downtown Boston had the worst traffic jams it has ever experienced, the kind that made front-page news in both daily papers. Some drivers gave up, pulling to the side of the road and abandoning their vehicles. And from downtown, the problem seemed to mushroom until nearly every major highway - Storrow Drive, the Central Artery and the tunnels to the airport - was also at a standstill.

And where was Boston Mayor Thomas Menino in all this? In sunny Florida, playing golf and attending a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Sounds like a ready-made opportunity for someone who might want to take on the mayor, doesn't it?

After all, snowstorms have been the downfall of many. Most famously, Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic lost an easy bid for re- election because he failed to clean up after a January 1979 blizzard. And politicians everywhere have learned that even joking about "waiting for spring" provokes instant ire.

But Menino has nothing to worry about. For while downtown may have been a mess, out in the neighborhoods, everyone was happy.

Before the first flake touched the ground on Monday, Menino had already declared a snow emergency. Plows swarmed through the streets. It seemed that no sooner had the snow ended then roads were already showing bare surface.

Proof? City councilors are pretty much on the front lines when it comes to snow complaints, eager to jump into the fray whenever there's been a misstep. Not this time.

John Tobin, representing West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, says he had expected an "avalanche of calls."

"Instead, in four hours, I only got two." Both of the complaints, Tobin notes, were handled swiftly by the public works department. Other councilors echo Tobin's observations. Even those who usually relish the opportunity of taking on the mayor, such as at-large Councilors Maura Hennigan and Felix Arroyo, can't find anything bad to say.

How to reconcile this seeming discrepancy between contented residents and angry drivers?

Easy. Those in the traffic jams drove into the city. They didn't live there.

All of which provides a neat illustration of the complicated set of masters to which local politicians must pay heed.

From an electoral point of view, mayors only need satisfy those who vote for them. That, it seems, is exactly what Menino did, paying special attention to removing snow from the city's often far- flung residential areas.

Yet Boston is much more than the sum of its 589,000 residents. Each day the city's population more than doubles as suburbanites travel in to work. On top of that, an enormous amount of commerce flows in and out of the city every day. Yet none of those commuters and none of those businesses get to vote for Boston's government. At least in the short run, they can be safely ignored.

Is that what happened? The city would deny it, yet after Wednesday's mess, there was a clear sense that City Hall knew it had blown it. The original plan was to leave downtown's snow piles in place. Stung by criticism, the city belatedly sent out a slew of trucks on Wednesday night to remove the snow. It wasn't very effective; crews were on the streets with loudspeakers, asking people to move their cars (and stressing it was voluntary, which meant, of course, that no one complied, since doing so was a sure way to lose a valuable parking space).

Even so, I find it hard to lay blame for this one at the city's feet. The problem wasn't that Boston didn't do a decent job of snow removal. It was that, after a 27.5-inch storm - the most in 100 years - no one appeared to take it seriously.

In 1978, the last time there was a storm of this magnitude, everyone had to stay inside as then-Gov. Michael Dukakis declared a state of emergency. For days, traffic was restricted from coming into Boston.

This year, the lessons of 1978 were apparently forgotten. In 25 years, technology has changed our lives greatly. Snow or shine, we can cruise the information highway. But real highways are subject to pretty much the same technology as they were back then and they get just as easily clogged.

True, the city and the state were perhaps a bit overconfident. Some Dukakis-ish warnings might have been in order. But for the most part, I think, last week's mess was our fault. We all should have stayed home another day.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

Caption: MENINO: Mayor Snowbird was in Florida.