\u201cIt is so stressful to be stuck at home and not know when we will freely and safely be able to go where we need to go,\u201d said Jean Ryan, a motorized wheelchair user. \u201cWe have spent weeks being stuck at home, like COVID time without the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan, the head of Disabled in Action of Metropolitan New York, said she only was able to testify in person after a neighbor in Bay Ridge cleared a path on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you to whomever shoveled three days after the storm instead of four hours,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
Snowy obstacles shrunk how some with disabilities get around following a January winter storm that was followed by a bitterly cold, weeks-long stretch of subfreezing temperatures. Then came the city\u2019s first blizzard<\/a> in a decade, which dumped more than 20 inches of snow on the five boroughs.<\/p>\n Originally scheduled for Feb. 23, the hearing was initially set to focus on pedestrian and transit accessibility during the January storm, which hit the city with more than 10 inches of snow and led to 19 outdoors deaths. The blizzard pushed it to Friday, when temperatures hit 40 degrees, finally speeding a melt.<\/p>\n But some people with disabilities still opted to testify remotely, citing continued uncertainty over just how far they could travel before encountering lingering snowy obstacles that are supposed to be cleared by property owners.<\/p>\n Eman Rimawi-Doster, a double amputee who uses a walker to get around, testified remotely\u00a0 that she \u201cmissed everything this week\u201d as a result of being unable to leave her Harlem home.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting to work isn\u2019t just about transportation or workplace accommodations,\u201d said Rimawi-Doster, a senior organizer for disability justice with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. \u201cIt\u2019s also about making sure streets, sidewalks and curb cuts are cleared for us in every borough.\u201d<\/p>\n Councilmember Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the disability committee, said that New Yorkers with limited mobility face \u201cpersistent barriers\u201d that only worsened during the dual winter storms.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many New Yorkers with disabilities, older adults and families with strollers, the question is not how the streets were plowed,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was whether they could leave their homes at all.\u201d<\/p>\n While some advocates praised City Hall for clearer pre-blizzard messaging emphasizing that property owners must clear areas near bus stops and carve four-foot-wide sidewalk paths big enough for wheelchairs, Councilmember Gail Brewer (D-Manhattan) said the message has clearly not sunk in enough with some.<\/p>\n She cited a chain restaurant near her Upper West Side district office that she said \u201cdidn\u2019t do anything\u201d to clear out space for pedestrians.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were stumbling over their mess and then the crosswalk was a mess,\u201d Brewer said.<\/p>\n Javier Lojan, the acting Department of Sanitation commissioner, said more than 4,500 summonses were issued to property owners for not clearing sidewalks, fire hydrants, unsheltered bus stops and crosswalks within hours of the end of the January storm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sanitation has so far issued more than 600 summonses for the latest winter blast<\/a>, when the department pressed 2,600 workers, 700 salt-spreaders, 2,200 plows and 1,500 emergency snow shovelers into service.<\/p>\n \u201cTogether, these two storms demonstrated what we already knew \u2014 that no two storms are alike,\u201d Lojan said. \u201cAnd that our response must be tailored to certain conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Sanitation](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/022726_snow_removal_hearing-1.jpg\")
Acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan testifies at a Council hearing about DSNY efforts to clear snow after two winter storms walloped the city, Feb. 27, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n