Complex Federal Land Footprint Causes Snow-Removal Quandary in D.C.
Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. Orhan Cam / Shutterstock.com
Why is that sidewalk not shoveled? In the nation’s capital, the feds are often to blame.
As a standoff sparked by anger over federal land-management policies continues to play out at a remote wildlife refuge eastern Oregon, there’s a different kind of frustration over federal land management that’s been stewing in the nation’s capital for years.
And it involves something as seemingly ordinary in the sphere of public services: snow removal.
Why? When a massive blizzard happens in any ordinary municipality, you can usually count on the local government’s transportation and public works departments being the primary agencies involved in response. State agencies might also play a role in snow removal, depending on where you are.
In the District of Columbia, it gets a bit more complicated. While D.C.’s transportation and public works departments play the leading roles in snow removal—and this weekend’s massive East Coast blizzard is certainly keeping them busy—there’s another level of government that can impact whether a particular sidewalk gets cleared: federal.
The federal government controls 29 percent of the land area in the District of Columbia, and while most roadways are under jurisdiction of the District’s government, land adjacent to those roadways, including sidewalks, can be under the authority of the feds, in particular the National Park Service.
So, while the District’s government has a law on the books that has recently strengthened snow-clearing rules and penalties for property owners, the local government in the nation’s capital can’t do much to force the feds to clean sidewalks under their jurisdiction.
And that means local citizens, depending on what government jurisdiction they’ve crossed into—and that jurisdiction’s level of proactiveness to clear sidewalks—often have to wander into the streets and into traffic to get around as the nation’s capital recovers from the blizzard.
Granted, the feds aren’t the primary actor to blame for pedestrians’ snow removal woes in the nation’s capital. The District government’s snow removal efforts can be problematic for pedestrians as well, which can be an issue anywhere where road-clearing is a priority and officials urge people to stay off roadways, which some D.C. officials have stressed. (That’s a difficult request to ask of residents, especially in urbanized, normally walkable areas, by the way.)
Beyond its official District government snow-removal response, which includes about 345 pieces of equipment and around 750 personnel, local authorities in the nation’s capital require homeowners to clear sidewalks of snow within 24 hours of the end of a storm and business owners within eight daylight hours.
Senior citizens and people with disabilities are exempted from the snow-clearing requirements and the District has an organized volunteer effort that offers shoveling assistance.
While that means that many neighborhoods may be able to dig out their sidewalks quickly, there may be a traffic island or a small triangle park—formed by D.C.’s many diagonal avenues that cut across the street grid and other street-layout features—that remain unshoveled because they’re under the control of the National Park Service. And knowing who is responsible a piece of urban infrastructure in the nation’s capital isn’t always obvious, so in parts of the city it becomes clear who is responsible as the snow sticks around for awhile and sections of sidewalks are snow banks.
Here’s an example involving a stretch of Foxhall Road NW near Georgetown: Immediately following the 2010 blizzards that pounded the nation’s capital, the German government, which has its chancery and ambassador’s residence located at Foxhall and Reservoir roads, had dutifully cleared the public sidewalks bordering the diplomatic property.
But further up the hill at the southwestern corner of Foxhall Road and Whitehaven Parkway, there’s a Washington Aqueduct Division property under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And that sidewalk went unplowed, necessitating that pedestrians to walk in the busy roadway.
In terms of interjurisdictional tensions, conflicts over snow removal responsibilities might not register too high compared to the complexities that come with, say, rat abatement, trash removal or infrastructure work.
But snow removal is important nonetheless. Especially if you’re a pedestrian in the nation’s capital who wants sidewalks cleared.
So should more federal land in the District be turned over to local authorities for better land management? That’s a complex intergovernmental question that most urbanized jurisdictions don’t have to deal with, but one that’s important right now in the very snowy nation’s capital.
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Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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