On Tuesday morning, about three hours before he was scheduled to step up to the microphones yet again for a press conference about his least favorite subject – snow – Mayor Martin Walsh is readying himself for a slow drive around the streets of Dorchester to inspect conditions after the latest two-foot dumping that had left the city in its third snow emergency in 17 days.

“Let’s head over to Welles Ave. I have no idea what kind of shape it’s in,” he says warily as a reporter listens in. “We just gotta make sure we can get down the streets.”

As his hybrid SUV bumps along, Walsh offers a running commentary on what he is seeing out the window. We pass a Boston Housing Authority property on Victory Road where the sidewalks aren’t yet shoveled out and he is annoyed. He instructs his aide in the back seat to call it in to the city agency. (Editor's note: In fact, the property in question— 5-15 Victory Rd.— turns out to be not owned or managed by the BHA.)

“Unfortunately, Adams Street right now, by the look of it, there won’t be parking on here for a couple of days,” says Walsh. “In the neighborhoods, one of our main focuses is making sure snow banks are down so emergency vehicles can get down. So as we do the main roads and widen the main roads and get rid of the snow banks, we’re making sure emergency apparatus and ambulances can get down the street.”

In the densely packed side streets between Dot Ave. and Adams Street, Walsh is dismayed to see that many homeowners have given up on clearing sidewalks altogether. Some of them he calls out by name.

“See, this sidewalk’s not shoveled. We’re going to be out ticketing here. That looks like two storms not shoveled. People can’t walk down the street … This guy’s shoveling his driveway and blocking the sidewalk.”

On an earlier drive-around, Walsh says, he confronted a weary shoveler he spotted tossing snow back onto the street. “I grabbed a guy the other day and told him not to shovel snow in the street. He looked at me like I was crazy and then he realized … He stopped.”

As we turn onto Dorchester Ave., the mayor is exasperated to find that — despite an ongoing parking ban— a few vehicles are parked in front of businesses near St. Mark’s Church.

“See, there’s a parking ban in effect and people are parked on the Ave right now,” he says. “It’s a Catch 22 because they’re here for businesses. But you can’t widen Dot Ave today. People are on both sides; even if they stop for ten seconds, if the plow comes through, you gotta go around the cars.”

Despite that, the mayor is generally pleased with what he sees along Dot’s main thoroughfare. The street has been cleared down to the blacktop in most places and there’s none of the gridlock that has followed earlier storms. At least not yet. There’s no school today. And, because the MBTA has taken the highly unusual step of shutting down all rail and most bus service, there are fewer vehicles and pedestrians on the street.

That’ll change, no doubt, when he re-opens schools and allows the parking ban to be lifted on Wednesday. (The ban will end at 5 p.m. Wednesday.)

“The issue is parking,” Walsh says. “There are certain parts of the Ave that are fine… but when we lift the parking ban, there’ll be cars on either side and they need to go over the yellow line to get down the Ave. Two cars coming at each other, it’s a problem. People can’t see beyond the snow banks.”

As we turn onto Welles Ave., Walsh takes a cell phone call from state Representative Gloria Fox, who wants to know when city plows will reach the streets that she has called in.“I’ll have people down there. I’ll call DPW, I’ll get them down there today. You gave me all the names,” he says to her. As he hangs up, he notes: “Some electeds are very active.”

Walsh on Samoset Street: The mayor chats with Tom McWilliams: "We'll have snow 'til July!"Now we’re on Samoset Street. It’s a tight squeeze, but passable. There are many people out on the street, mainly digging out their cars. One of them is Irish-born Tom McWilliams, who is in his 80s. The mayor worked with him on a construction site in the 1980s. McWilliams is digging out his car when the mayor pulls up on him and rolls down his window.

“I like the hat,” the mayor tells McWilliams, who is wearing a ski hat emblazoned with the logo for Local 223, the Laborer’s union that Walsh and his family have run for two generations. “I know you’re busy. I don’t want to bother you. I’m just driving around checking the streets. I want to make sure we can get fire engines down the street.

“I see you on TV every day,” McWilliams says.

“It’s ridiculous, they want me on every hour,” Walsh laughs. “It’s crazy. We’re going to have snow until July.”

Walsh is out of the SUV now and spots a group of neighbors carving out a parking spot up the street. They are excited to see him.

“Heyyy! I’m one of your senior citizens. How are you doing?” asks Louise Hanner. “Did you get the calls last night?” Walsh wants to know, referring to recorded messages from the Elderly Commission that went out to the city’s seniors on Monday night. “I got two of them! I got two phone calls from you!” Hanner replies.

Walsh gets thumbs up and shouts of encouragement from Alan Duffy and his wife Camilla and then he’s back in the car, heading back towards Dot Ave. He’s upbeat. “I think the one thing the shoveling allows is neighbors to get out together and see each other,” he says.

The reporter asks him if he ever imagined that he’d have to contend with this amount of snow. “No, not in this short period of time. All the snow we did last year we got good feedback; people told us they hadn’t seen that kind of response in 20 years in some parts of the city. This year we just can’t get ahead of it. If this was it now and we had a week straight to get rid of it, we’d be all set. But, we don’t have that week straight,” he laments.

We’re making good time up the avenue now, and Walsh is again taking mental notes on which Fields Corner businesses have done a good job— or not— in clearing their walkways. For the most part, he’s impressed.

Mayoral inspection: Mayor Walsh rolled through Dorchester on Tuesday assessing snow removal efforts. Photo by Bill ForryHe spots Gallagher Insurance, where his mother gets her homeowner coverage. The owner, John Gallagher, always shovels out his walk and his roof, which is flat. “John’s yard looks good,” says Walsh. “This is great here in Fields Corner.”

Still, it’s clear that Walsh — like his constituents— is ready to put the winter of 2015 in the rear view mirror, if only it would let him.

“We’ve got to get back to governing, but it’s hard because the focus is all about the snow,” he says. “We’ve got a new school committee person to announce, we’ve got the [Boston Police] co-op board. These are big boards for community groups.”

The mayor acknowledges he’s frustrated. But, in his public appearances, he has been keeping his tone positive. He wants his even-keel personality to set the tone for everyone else.

“I’ve asked people to stay calm and I know people are frustrated. I’m frustrated,” he says. “I’m certainly sick of looking at snow. It’s disrupting people’s lives and the city’s business— but people need to stay patient with us.

“We’re doing the best we can do with removing the snow; the amount we’ve gotten is just crazy. I’ve tried to keep an even keel, you know. I’ve bumped into some frustrated people. Some people have blasted us on Twitter. I’m not too concerned about Twitter. I’m more concerned about the elderly person sitting in a house in Roxbury or Dorchester who can’t get out of their house. Some of the people on Twitter who hide behind their Twitter names, you know – go out and shovel, help us shovel, that’s what I’d suggest to people.

“There’s plenty of criticism to go around,” he says. “I could go around and blame people or criticize, but now is not the time. It’s time to work and do our jobs and then go back and evaluate the situations we have to fix and improve. We learn from every storm.”