Residents pan new Montgomery County snow plow tracker, fake news on sidewalks

The new Montgomery County "snow portal" touted by County Councilmember Hans Riemer and other officials got a failing grade from residents I spoke to, and on social media, after yesterday's storm. Not only is there no longer a map to view snow operations countywide, or even in your area, but the consensus opinion was that the time estimates were no more useful than the old map. Not to mention that switching to a primitive text format, instead of a graphic map, was like going from iPhone to DOS.

Constituent gives Councilmembers
Hans Riemer and Roger Berliner his
blunt assessment of their new "snow portal"
on Facebook

Riemer provided some additional fake news about his sidewalk shoveling bill, which cost taxpayers $6,458,000, but came up even shorter than the snow portal. In a blog post, he boasted that since the bill passed two years ago, "I find that the County is doing a much better job clearing snow from sidewalks where the County (or Parks) is the responsible party as well as helping clear snow from sidewalks where there may be a public safety concern."

"It's just as useless

as past versions. #FAIL"

This is simply not true, as I well-documented last winter. On Westbard Avenue alone, sidewalks fronting both Montgomery County (Little Falls Library) and Montgomery County Public Schools (Westland Middle School) property remained unshoveled a full month after the largest storm. Embarrassingly, Riemer himself passed by these very sidewalks after the storm on a carpetbagger's bus tour for the Westbard sector plan, and took no action to get them cleared.

What happened?

Riemer's claim earns him the Four Pinocchios/Pants-on-Fire awards.

UNSHOVELED SIDEWALKS IN WHITE FLINT (PHOTOS) - BETHESDA SNOW REMOVAL

We've seen some of the dangerous sidewalks in downtown Bethesda, and along River Road. Here are some of this past week's biggest offenders in White Flint. There's some discussion of new plans and new rules, but it would seem to me that the rules are quite clear: residential and business property owners (and WMATA and government) are responsible for clearing their respective sidewalks. If it is not done, they are in violation of existing law. It would seem inappropriate for taxpayers to pick up the tab for some property owners' snow removal, while still being forced to clear their own residential and business sidewalks at their own expense and/or labor.

This was the most dangerous sidewalk situation I can recall. In numerous cases, pedestrians were walking head on into oncoming traffic in the roadway. If bus stops were even accessible, passengers were forced to climb snow drifts in between the stop and curb, to board or disembark. And this was many days later, not immediately following the storm.

You made it to the bus stop,
but getting to the bus
won't be easy once it
arrives

Fail

What good is a crosswalk if
there's nothing to cross to?

Better snow conditions
than Sochi

SNOW, ICE REMOVAL SUPPLIES AT STROSNIDERS IN BETHESDA

What little snow there is won't be going anywhere for awhile. Freezing temperatures make snow and ice removal a real chore.

Strosniders Hardware in the Bradley Shopping Center has what you need to tackle the job.  Ice scrapers, ice melting pellets and snow shovels are all there.

But they also have heated stair and front walk mats that will melt away snow and ice without chemicals being left behind for kids or pets.