They sent an electronic message after how long? When many older students and parents with young children were outside in freezing weather waiting for a bus that was 2 hours late? I drove my child to school after 20 minutes being late. What are parents suppose to do who do not have a car to drive their child to school? Providence has the WORST student transportation service, and if you call to inquire on anything, the people who answer the phones are extremely rude, and are of no help. They could care less if you are parent of a small child and the bus is 45 minutes late, with your child on it! I am not even talking about Thursday's disaster. These are common occurences.

"Meanwhile, the DPW sent out trucks to re-treat the hill in front of the bus yard."

Yeah, 're-treat'. In other words "Hey, did anybody treat that hill? No? Well, you might want to do that after your coffee break."

Has anyone else figured out that the plow drivers are taking their sweet time with plowing us out of these storms because they want the overtime pay to buy Christmas presents?

I hope the citizens of Providence remember these private bus company fiascoes if someday the city ever tried to privatize their ambulance service! Clearly the city is incapable of selecting quality private services for their residents.

And - what? - the city STILL hasn't learned? No difference in Cranston - Cranston West parking lot was a sheet of solid ice - not a bit of sand....just who is making decisions in these communities - incompetent!

A message was left on our answering machine at 9:10am That's great isn't it? After standing in the cold. Our street is still waiting to be cleared. Cars on our street back out of their driveways and get stuck in the middle of the road blocking traffic in both directions. Wake up Providence, you're being taken advantage of by these plow drivers!!

Big surprise (NOT). Many city streets were absolutely not ready for traffic.

When I got to Providence this morning for work on the East Side, I was appalled at the condition of the streets. Barely a single car can get down some of them, and parking is a nightmare because the snow was never removed curb-to-curb.

You know that photo the 7-to-7 blog ran Friday morning of a plow going up George St. with its blade up, and the street was filled with snow? Look again, same place: nothing has improved!

At least the road in front of my house in North Kingstown does not seem to have been treated for days. It's a sheet of ice. And these are not the state workers, right. Is there maybe something wrong with the treating stuff?

I live off of Budlong Road in Cranston and the the plow must have gone up and down my street for most of the day.....with the plow in the up position!!! He made more of a mess than anything else. Then after everyone cleaned out the bottom of their driveways, the plow came and plowed everyone else back in....so we had to do double the work.

God I love this City ...good job Mayor Napolitano.

I just drove through Cranston. Not a side road in the city has been touched. Some streets have as much as six inches of packed ice on them making them almost impassable. Excellent work, Cranston DPW.

I was starting to think that the situation where I live was unusual but if they can not even plow where the school buses are then I guess there is no hope for the rest of us. I am a fan of Mayor Ciciline in general, but it seems to me that since he became mayor the situation with the snow removal has deteriorated substantially. In fact, it has been my major complaint since the mayor's first winter and I hoped until now that things would improve as people complained. It is not just a problem with delays and parking, it is a public danger that we have on our hands for every resident of the city. For all the complaining from other towns, it was a shock to me when I drove home up Route 2 on Thursday that Cranston had plowed Reservoir Ave. fully and there was a line at crossing into Providence where there was snow down the middle of the street, and it only got worse from there as I turned onto my street. Obviously every community has a tight budget and has to juggle priorities, but it is hard to imagine a city responsibilty which more directly impacts more residents on a daily basis over a longer period of time than the maintenance of safe streets. Maybe we should have public meetings about how and where to spend our city tax dollars and see how highly this ranks now that we have all seen what happens when it is NOT a priority at all.

We worked like dogs to clear our driveway only to have it plowed right back in, while we were out in front of our house shoveling the walkway!!!
This is what I pay taxes for. I don't think there is a department with more abuses in it than the DOT.