A couple hours of touring the side streets of Northeast Baltimore this afternoon showed that at long last the snow is gone down to the pavement on at least one lane of just about every street. But there are still heaps of snow -- heaps of heaps of snow -- in the roadways. Since most of them have acquired a thick coating of black grime, it isn't a pretty sight, but some of these heaps and heaping enough that they might not be gone until May.

Generally, these heaps are more of an inconvenience and an aesthetic blight than an impediment to traffic. But the city has allowed some to linger in the travel lanes -- putting the squeeze on traffic. There were several along Cold Spring Lane near Morgan State this evening narrowing what should be two travel lanes of a major road down to one. Two weeks after the last significant snowfall. that's inexcusable.

Certain neighborhoods in Northeast Baltimore -- among them Lauraville, Raspeburg and Hamilton Hills -- were among those that took the longest to be reached by snow removal operations. While those roads are passable now, there's still a lot of snow in the parking lanes.

Most of the lawn chairs and orange cones marking staked-out parking spaces have been removed, though there are still folks out there pushing their claim long after any legitimacy has expired. (What's the story on E. 32nd St., anyway?) Can't we reach a civic agreement that these extra-legal but understandable parking space claims expire after 72 hours -- no matter how much snow has fallen?