Snow park

I lived, for two years, in Portland, Maine, and I was at first confused regarding the city's policies on snow removal -- but now I think that Boston should adopt at least one of them.

The law that stunned me during the first storm in the winter of 2004-05 is that there is no street parking in the area in which I lived -- the peninsula -- during snow emergencies. None at all.

Of course, I shook my head and said, "What am I supposed to do with my car?" and when I found out that certain places -- lots attached to schools and other city-owned properties -- were available to park I said, "That's crazy. They must fill up right away."

What I found was that I never had trouble getting a spot in the lot closest to my apartment, and though the walk -- about a quarter-mile and usually in the midst of falling snow -- was a bit of a chore, the up-side easily offset it: The streets were plowed to the curb, and when the storm ended and the emergency was lifted, everybody could park as normal on the street.

Now this, I'm sure, would be impossible for Boston to execute because we are a city of nearly 600,000 and Portland's population is 64,000. There would not be enough places to park cars during storms to make this feasible. Also, Portland's regulation only applied to the central neighborhoods, not the outlying areas.

However, there was another city policy that I think should be implemented in Boston. In Portland street-cleaning parking regulations are in place year-round. When there is snow on the ground the sweepers are left in the garages and city workers remove the snow with plows, backhoes and pick-up trucks. In one week's time all of the streets are cleared of snow so parking is back to normal. We could do the same here.