Each year
in Oslo, come winter, the same problems crop up. There are snowstorms, sometimes
there is a fair amount of accumulation, and then the snow plows come out to
clean the streets and to spread salt to keep the streets free of ice and snow.
The end result is that cars and buses usually have no problem getting around
the city streets during the winter. It’s a seldom occurrence that the streets
are so icy or snowy that cars and buses have problems maneuvering their way
along them. Not so with the sidewalks. Sidewalks are another matter; it’s as
though sidewalks in Oslo belong to another universe. And in that universe, chaos and uncertainty reign. No one knows for sure which sidewalks
will be cleared and which won’t. The street Ullevålsveien, for example, has
completely clear sidewalks, making it a simple matter to visit the different
stores and cafes on that street, whereas most of the sidewalks in Grünerløkka
(one of the areas of the city quite near where we live) are a disaster. They
are in fact disasters waiting to happen, in the form of broken bones of some
sort. They are so slippery and dangerous to walk on that most people choose to
walk in the streets instead. That way there is no risk of falling. Ditto for
the area where we live; icy sidewalks with some gravel thrown down to help you
get a grip, but it doesn’t help if they haven’t been shoveled first. I have
begun to walk in the streets myself, after having fallen once already. Luckily
I did not end up with any broken bones or sprained wrists. In the morning on
the way to the bus stop near where we live, I join the many others who are
walking in the streets rather than on the sidewalks. It strikes me as rather
silly to see all these people in the streets, but who am I to judge? We all
just want to be safe and to get where we’re going on time. Walking on the icy
sidewalks makes me feel as though I’m eighty years old; having to walk slowly,
inch by inch, looking ahead to determine whether the patch of white ground ahead
of you is ice or not, and then following the path of no ice until it becomes
ice again. And so on. I feel sorry for elderly people in this city; I wonder if
many of them even dare to venture out, even if they are in general good health.
One fall, and they’re out of commission for quite a while.
The
randomness of sidewalk shoveling strikes me as rather absurd in a country where
winter can extend from mid-October until early April. The newspapers have written
about it the problem, droves of people complain about it, but every year,
nothing changes. I don’t get it. The last newspaper article I read about this
problem discussed whose responsibility it was to shovel the sidewalks; in some
cases it’s the city’s responsibility, in other cases, the owners of the
buildings. I can personally attest to the fact that most apartment building
owners seem to do little or nothing to keep the sidewalks in front of their buildings
clear; perhaps they figure that these are city sidewalks so the city should
take care of them. The city fines the owners for not clearing the sidewalks,
and so it goes. In the meantime, people are slipping and sliding on their way
to wherever they’re going.
Shop and restaurant
owners in the downtown area of the city complain that they are losing business to
the large shopping malls that ring the city. There may be multiple reasons for
this, but one thing is clear to me. If shop or restaurant owners in the
downtown area don’t care enough to get out and shovel a path to their doors, if
they can’t clear snow from the sidewalks in front of their stores, don’t expect
my business. I don’t want to hear your
complaints that malls are taking all your business. I like to shop in the downtown
area of Oslo, but I can tell you that the icy sidewalks discourage me from
doing so during the winter. But again, this is a random affair. Some shop
owners do shovel snow, others don’t. Why is that? Why do some shop owners care
more about their customers than others? I think they all need to get on the same
page—prioritize your customers. We potential customers don’t care whose
responsibility it is to shovel the sidewalks, so stop arguing about it. Just
get out there and do it, like the Nike commercial says.
