The snow stopped Saturday night. I waited until midday Monday to walk around downtown Bethesda, MD and see how it held up. Bethesda has a reputation for being a good place to walk around, a big snow storm is the perfect time to put this to the test.
90% of the sidewalks were at least mostly shoveled, you would now and then come across one or two stores that hadn't shoveled (unfortunately, some of them were on Arlington Rd which is pretty major). Intersections and curb cuts were pretty hit and miss, lots of them had been poorly cleared or not cleared at all.
Twitter user @
summed it up nicely:
Dear Bethesda, learn how to shovel sidewalks. It's not that tough. Also, plow more than one lane on the major roads. That would be great.
Old Georgetown Road and parts of Wisconsin Avenue were missing lanes. Particularly noticeable was Old Georgetown between Arlington Rd and Woodmont Ave (southbound) only one lane of two was clear, backing up traffic.
Veteran's Park was just tables in a field of snow, no chance of walking through there.
The Capital Crescent Trail was actually a bright spot. There was a narrow path cleared going down towards DC. I didn't follow it to see how far down it was cleared.
I'll give the cleanup a B- because it really should have been better by now. I went easy on them because it was such a large storm.
At the top of Bethesda Metro station is a line of newspaper racks. They all had about four feet of snow in front of them and none had been refilled, not even the
USA Today and
Washington Post. The lone exception was the
Rock Creek Free Press which had not only been refilled, it had a path shoveled to it. If you have never read it, grab a copy one day, its free.
One spot that did give me a pause was this store. The snow was slowly sliding off the roof and was hanging over the sidewalk. Look up while you are walking too.
This sign at the entrance to Elm St garage says that it will save you money, but since they charge per transaction and you don't get a discount on the meter, I'm not sure how you save. If they would add time to the meter a nickel at a time until you called and canceled or if you could call before the meter was active in the morning then not start charging until it became active then I could see it saving money. I don't see how it is faster than putting change in either, although the convenience of not having to keep change in your car is a plus.
Where Tickled Pink used to be (on the corner of Bethesda Ave and Bethesda Ln in Bethesda, MD) there soon will be a Lilly Pulitzer "Pink Palm" store. Now we can all get Florida style flower print dresses whenever we want. Tickled Pink didn't last long but they sure found a new tenant fast.
I was walking down St. Elmo Ave near Old Georgetown Rd and saw that one of the windows at Wool & Knots (one of the many rug stores we have) was cracked from top to bottom. There was also a strip of tape covering the crack. I decided to take a closer look to try and identify the cause. Right in the middle of the crack I found this:
The Capital Crescent Trail was actually a bright spot. There was a narrow path cleared going down towards DC. I didn't follow it to see how far down it was cleared.
During the snowstorm the roads were in pretty poor condition, not surprising since it was snowing at the rate of 1 to 2 inches an hour. Here is a picture of I-495 near Old Georgetown Road. Even with conditions like this, there were still people driving.
No one was spared, not even the police.
By Sunday afternoon, things were much better. Main roads and secondary roads were wet, side streets were a bit worse, and they had started plowing neighborhood streets. I was just a tiny bit disappointed by how quickly things got back to normal.
After that, they had five different schools singing carols (one after another, not all at once). I stayed for the first two (Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Jane de Chantal) before the cold chased me off to get hot chocolate.
