Icy sidewalks are a policy failure

The story of the week in Richmond is the water outage that left us all without clean drinking water for days on end, anxiously watching YouTube videos titled “TOILET TROUBLE?! Foolproof Gravity Flush how-to (no tools)” and wondering just how many years of deferred maintenance it takes to render crucial infrastructure vulnerable to catastrophic failure in the face of a few inches of snow. Are we talking a dozen? A score? Perhaps even a gross of years? The mind, she boggles. Just imagine how much worse this would have been if the previous mayor hadn’t been so kind as to “set a standard of excellence” for Richmond for eight years directly prior to this disaster!

Ahem. Plenty of reporting has already been done on l’affair du DPU, and that situation is still developing as I write this. So instead, today let’s discuss another piece of infrastructure that was disastrously compromised by the storm right here in Church Hill: our sidewalks. Too many of them are still slick with ice and snow days after the last flake fell, treacherous to navigate for the able-bodied and damn near impassable for everybody else. Just last night, I saw one of our neighbors wheeling up North 26th Street on a mobility scooter, barely visible in the twilight. Like so many other blocks, the sidewalks on that one were an unnavigable patchwork of snow and ice, so she had to risk her life in the street, shoulder-to-side panel with two-ton motor vehicles, to get where she was going.

This plainly sucks. It’s also, strictly speaking, against the law. City Code, Sec. 24-34 dictates (emphasis mine throughout):

That’s right, Lookouts: failing to shovel your sidewalk in the semi-rare event of Richmond snowfall is actually a Class 4 Misdemeanor offense (there’s a carveout on criminal penalties for “any person who is physically disabled or who is age 65 years or older,” calm down.) I’ve never lived in a city that has enforced this sort of ordinance, though, and I don’t see much evidence that this one does, either. Much like stop signs, leash requirements, and a whole host of other small rules meant to govern street life, Richmond’s snowy-sidewalk rule abdicates actual governance in favor of an appeal to individuals’ good faith. One look around Church Hill this week, and it’s clear that appeal falls on a lot of deaf ears.

It’s The Lookout’s considered editorial position that you should clear your sidewalk of snow and ice if you’re able. It’s your civic responsibility to care about your neighbors, and I hope you act accordingly. But I’m nawt a cawp, and rather than waste the rest of this column trying to scold scofflaws into doing what’s right next time it storms (which may be Saturday, by the way), I’d like to spend the rest of this column on a more productive thought experiment.

What if Richmond didn’t shunt shoveling duties off on citizens and shrug when they didn’t get done? What if—and I know this is crazy, but bear with me—we demanded the city to clear our sidewalks, the same way they plow our roads? We would never leave the latter to the door-by-door whims of individual residents, so why the former?

Transit and mobility nerds have been harping on this idea for years, and some cities—Chicago, for one—are finally starting to take it seriously. Closer to home, the group Livable Cville last week called on Charlottesville’s City Council to pilot a program “for proactively clearing sidewalks after winter storms, focusing on priority travel zones while prioritizing equity.” The org argued that:

I think that’s right. Looks like somebody at Charlottesville’s City Hall agreed.

It’s true that Church Hill residents with mobility challenges are unduly endangered by our current sidewalk clearance policy, but it’s not like it’s a picnic for the rest of us, either. Between absentee slumlords, disabled and elderly residents, and capable-but-lazy jagoffs, this (non) system is set up to fail, and when it does, even surer-footed neighbors aren’t exempt from eating shit. Rather than blindly hope everybody takes care of their sidewalk, or waste resources policing those scofflaws that shirk their snow-day civic duty, the city put shovel to pavement itself.

This a classic “curb-cut effect” situation: when we dedicate public resources to those who need them most, we all tend to benefit. Sidewalks are public infrastructure, and walking around Church Hill is one of the best things you can still do for free in this city. If Richmond can plow the roads, it can shovel the sidewalks. You deserve it. We deserve it.

This sort of sea change won’t happen before the next storm, or the one after that. Our present water woes are a harsh reminder that the city’s administrative capabilities have a long way to go, contra Stoney’s Standard of Excellence™️. But it’s the one we should be working toward, not just vis-à-vis sidewalk snow removal. There’s a version of Richmond city life where 900 East Broad does more than the bare minimum to maintain the infrastructure we all depend on for work and pleasure, whether that’s more regularly mowing our parks’ lawns, more urgently redesigning our streets’ most-dangerous intersections, or clearing vital pedestrian transit infrastructure when it snows. The first step is imagining that Richmond; the next step is organizing to demand it.

🤩 We’ve got stickers

What’s an independent neighborhood newsletter without its own stickers? Nothing, that’s what. Good thing The Lookout now has some! If you’d like one of your own, Venmo me $1 with your mailing address in the comment section, and I’ll mail you two stickers. (I’m @David-Infante on Venmo.) Or, if you see me around the neighborhood, come say hello and I’ll hook you up, as long I have some on me.

Semi-relatedly: if you’re looking for a sticker printer of your own, check out Vinyl Disorder. I’ve used them for years, and while the website is a bit janky, their customer service is prompt, their sales are good, and the stickers always come out great. Use my referral link and we’ll both get store credit. Or don’t, whatever you’re into.

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

📢 Happenings on The Hill

Testing out what I hope will be a recurring “digital bulletin board” type section linking to events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment but are still worth knowing about. Here’s your inaugural installment of Happenings on The Hill:

• Belt it out: The Church Hill Association is coordinating donations on behalf of RISE Afterschool Program for kids’ belts, which are apparently in short supply. Shop the gift list.

• Tenants in trouble?: If the water outage put you out of work and you’re worried about making rent, The Richmond Housing Justice Collective would like to hear from you. Take the survey.

• Boost your baristas: Riverbend Roastery is back open, but Felicia, Han, and the gang lost almost a week of work, so the shop has opened a donation page. Throw in.

• Cake-eaters, assemble: On the other side of the neighborhood, Fat Rabbit is also asking for staff support, and/or gift card and merch purchases. Donate some bunny money.

• Grisette? Lunch? What?!: It’s true, the frites-mongers on E. Marshall St. are adding midday service today through Sunday to make up for lost revenue. Details here.

Got something for a future edition of Happenings on The Hill? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.