Last February, after a heavy snowfall last winter, NewsLanc reported a hazardous lack of sidewalk maintenance near Central Market, with “pedestrian crossings blocked with three foot high plowed snow. Car passengers risked serious injury clambering over curbside frozen snow banks to reach the sidewalks.” This week, however, downtown sidewalks and crosswalks are comparatively walkable, with the City taking serious measures to clear and even remove collected snow.

Mike Stauffer, co-owner of Ric’s Bread, was surprised today to see a front-end loader working outside of his North Queen Street shop. “When I saw the digger out there I thought, ‘Oh no, what happened?,’” said Stauffer, who initially expected to see a broken water line. In the several years that Stauffer has worked at the shop, he has never seen such equipment utilized.

On Monday afternoon a crew worked their way down the block, shoveling snow from the curb and into the path of the loader, which scooped up and deposited the piles into a nearby dump truck. One of the foremen on site told NewsLanc that he actually works for a different City utility department, but was specially recruited to supplement the effort.

“I’d give ‘em two thumbs up for this,” Stauffer said of the City.

Donna Sheaffer, co-owner of the Zanzibar boutique on West King Street, echoed Stauffer’s sentiment. “This year it just seems like it is more pedestrian-friendly,” Sheaffer asserted, “Plus, the streets are already cleared right to the curb, where in years past there sometimes would be mounds of snow.” The crosswalks, Stauffer said, show a strong improvement compared to last year’s conditions: “Rather than having to walk over big mounds of snow, they’re all open for pedestrians.”

“It might be in preparation for the next storm,” Sheaffer noted, “But they’re doing a great job.”

Nearly all sidewalks were well maintained by their corresponding shopowners, with the only notable exception being a long, icy strip fronting the Hager’s shopping center on West King.

In the neighborhoods, conditions were not quite as clean as they appear downtown. The dense, narrow streets of Cabbage Hill were largely slush covered, with bulging mounds of snow contending with potential parking spaces.

But St. Josepth Street resident Manuel Velasquez did not complain as he shoveled away on Monday afternoon. He granted that the street conditions were not desirable, but attributed the problem mostly to the limited space, “There was just so much snow—where are you going to put it?,” he said, “They might come down and plow and then you got to clean your car out, so you throw it back down to the street. Then you’re back at square one.”

When asked if the City’s clean-up efforts were at all improved this year, Velasquez said, “I don’t think it’s worse. May not be any better. I’d say it’s close to the same.”