I-Team: Boston is mapping “hollow sidewalks”
A technician uses an electromagnetic radar to examine sidewalks in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood.
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BOSTON (WBZ) — Monday morning, a technician could be seen pushing a bright yellow machine over the sidewalks of Boston’s bustling Chinatown. “He’s shooting down electromagnetic radar below sidewalk,” explained Maddie Webster, the Program Manager for Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics.
It’s part of the city’s new subterranean investigation into how many of Boston’s sidewalks are held up by little more than air. “We’re talking about a basement that actually extends out underneath the sidewalk past the property line,” said Webster.
There are mysterious signs in various neighborhoods around Boston warning about so-called “hollow sidewalks.” They’re across from the State House on Beacon Hill, in the Theater District, and in Post Office Square. “I’m worried it’s going to collapse,” said one man passing by.
The WBZ I-Team asked Mayor Michelle Wu and her staff about it after a woman was seriously hurt falling through a hollow sidewalk as she left Bethlehem Healing Temple on Blue Hill Avenue last summer. “She went under 10 feet into the basement,” said Pastor Joe Swilley. “Broke her leg in three places.”
The city is now working to create a map of hollow sidewalks, also called areaways. “People, when they’re walking down these streets, think that they’re walking on solid ground,” she said. “You never know what you’re going to find. It could be a basement; it could be a utility vault.”
Hollow sidewalks make it impossible to use the heavy equipment needed to fix crumbling spots on sidewalks. Disability Commissioner Kristen McCosh looked over a trouble spot on Beach Street. “Someone like myself can’t get over the sidewalk,” she said from her wheelchair. “There’s broken asphalt, there is a slope, and the city actually can’t fix these problems until we figure out all the issues involved.”
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