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'There's no place to put it': Snowbanks and slick conditions to make Mass. roads challenging
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The snow has finally stopped. According to the National Weather Service, Boston ended up getting a total of 23.2 inches, making this snowstorm the eighth-largest in the city's recorded history. Mayor Michelle Wu lifted the city's snow emergency and parking ban at 8 p.m. last night. (That means you can keep using space savers in the neighborhoods that allow them until 8 p.m. on Wednesday.)
Now to the news:
Slush hour: It's another snow day for Boston and many surrounding public school districts, as the region continues to dig out. For the adults heading back to work, state officials are warning that the commute in the near future could be tricky.
- Icy roads: Massachusetts Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver says icy conditions will remain a risk, with temperatures expected to stay below freezing through the rest of the week. "We will have crews out periodically over the coming week to make sure that we're putting treatment down to try to reduce that black ice that you're likely to see first thing in the morning," Gulliver told reporters yesterday. "That's going to be on both local roadways, and especially around places like intersections and entrance and on-ramps to our highways."
- Piling up: Snowbanks will also be a challenge, especially on local roads (as my supposedly two-way Somerville side street can testify). "The municipalities have a hard time with this much snow," Gulliver said. "There's no place to put it." With another possible winter storm eyeing us this weekend, crews are focusing on clearing road shoulders and drainage infrastructure, he said. "Things are going to be narrow for the next few days with those big snowbanks," Gulliver said. "But we're right now pushing those back and really trying to open up those roadways again."
- On track: The MBTA expects to run normal service this morning across all bus, subway and commuter rail lines. However, there may be some Hingham/Hull ferry cancellations due to ice and slush in Hingham harbor.
In court: A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments this afternoon on whether the developer behind Vineyard Wind should be allowed to resume construction. As WBUR's Miriam Wasser reports, the Trump administration brought the nearly complete 62-turbine offshore wind farm near Martha's Vineyard to a standstill last month over purported national security risks. But three other projects affected by the same pause have gotten court rulings allowing them to get back to work.
- What to expect: The developers behind the three other farms successfully argued in court that the pause was just an excuse for the administration to stop an industry it doesn't like. (Vineyard Wind went through a yearslong vetting process that included the Defense Department before starting construction.) Kate Sinding Daly, a policy expert with the Conservation Law Foundation, said she expects Vineyard Wind to employ the same legal strategy. "I think it's highly likely that the developer here is going to make a similar argument that this is all pretextual — that this is an administration that has it out for wind," Daly said.
- Zoom out: Here's a map showing all the offshore wind projects off the coast of New England and their current legal status.
On the auction block: Three paintings by the late artist and longtime public TV host Bob Ross are going up for auction today in Marlborough. As WBUR's Katie Cole reports, Ross' company is putting the works up for sale to support public television, after Republicans in Congress revoked federal funding last year.
- How much will they bring in? The paintings have been appraised at between $25,000 and $60,000, each. Robin Starr, the vice president of Bonhams Skinner auction house, said they could fetch even more. "Auction people are a little like baseball people, so we don't want to jinx things by saying what we think they're going to do, but I think we can assume they're going to do quite well," Starr said.
P.S.— Think you know everything about Taylor Swift? Think again. Our friends at Cognoscenti are hosting a CitySpace event tonight that will dive deep into the world of the pop icon with three local Swift experts who have dissected her music, brand and more. The show starts at 6:30 p.m., with doors at 5:30 p.m. Get tickets here!
