Snowcialism! City Plows Sidewalks — In Burlington

City public works crews were out in the latest snowstorm clearing not just the streets, but people’s sidewalks, too.

Those crews work for the city of Burlington, Vermont. And they’ve been doing that as a matter of course for decades.

So reported William Ward, Burlington’s director of code enforcement.

Ward spoke about that on the latest episode of WNHH’s ​“SeeClickFix Radio” program. He was responding to a report posted on the SeeCLickFix problem-solving website here in New Haven about sheets of perilous ice on the sidewalk outside the abandoned Comcast building on Chapel Street in Wooster Square. SeeClickFix posters have been complaining about that post-snowstorm problem for a while now.

In New Haven, property owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks in front of their property.

In Burlington, public works employees out on routes to plow the streets in snowstorms bring with them smaller Bobcats with ​“little sanders on the back” (no relation to ​“Bernie Sanders,” he quipped, referring to the socialist former Burlington mayor who Tuesday night won the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary). So rather than receive complaints on the Burlington SeeClickFix site about unresponsive property owners failing to clear sidewalks, the city might receive complaints from citizens who want the public works crews to get to a sidewalk sooner.

“People almost don’t even know there’s been a snowstorm when they wake up in the morning” because the crews generally get to the job so promptly, Ward joked.

Burlington citizens did complain recently about bike lanes not being cleared enough. The city has 7.75 miles of such lanes, which get heavy use — including by commuters in snowstorms, Ward reported.

Heroin Highway Solution

Burlington stands at the northern end of the so-called ​“heroin highway” that begins in New Haven — I‑91, along which communities have experienced a sharp rise in opiate-related deaths.

As a result, Burlington has seen a rise in the number of complaints on SeeClickFix about dirty needles left on the ground. At first city employees went out to pick up the needles, Ward said. Recently the city linked up with the Howard Center Safe Recovery Group, an agency that operates a needle exchange. It directs the citizen complaints to the agency, which now picks up the needles. The agency also uses the maps that accompany the complaints to identify where to clean up in general, and where to work with users to avoid the toxic littering.

Ward has asked citizens to be specific about where they find the needles. ​“When you’re looking for a needle ​‘in a parking lot,’ it can take a long time” without more details, he noted.

Click on or download the above audio file to listen to the entire episode of ​“SeeClickFix Radio.”

Today’s episode of ​“Dateline New Haven” was made possible in part through support from Yale-New Haven Hospital.