Winter Walking and Cycling

[tomh009]

But I understand that it may not be a palatable option because it seems unfair to suburban residents to pay for sidewalk clearing 'downtown'.

Maybe pick a few neighbourhoods in different types of area of the city? So a different downtown neighbourhood, a couple of suburban neighbourhoods, some areas in between, maybe a major street (rather than an area). Then see what people in those areas think in the spring.

Kind of like a follow-up study, using the city clearing only, which seems to have been the most successful? Although the contracted work might have been OK if the clearing standards were the same.

[danbrotherston]

Well ... it's not a council decision yet, only a staff recommendation. There is time to lobby the councilors and/or present to the council at the meetin

Yes, I am gathering my thoughts now and trying to figure out what exactly I want to ask of council. I suspect that, as has been mentioned, there isn't a lot of hope for moving ahead on this. But I find it fascinating that the Vic Park pilot area has such support (and the Record goes with the much more negative headline). I mean, how many city projects get that kind of support in a relatively short period of time?

Though not my ideal, I do wonder if the best way forward right now is to encourage council to consider a slow build out of the program, starting in the (more dense and overall walkable) core/central neighbourhoods and expand that out slowly over the next several years. Still thinking on this of course, but it's just one idea I had to try to find a way to move forward.

Is the actual report public yet somewhere?

The record went with staff's narrative....

In my opinion, staff substantially missrepresented the results of the study...they didn't exactly say the pilot was poor, but they strongly minimized the improvement in sidewalk conditions.

They also failed to in any reasonable way address the enormous discrepency between sidewalk conditions (60% good 15% bad) and tickets issued (7% notices issued)...they said "well they're different areas"...then I asked "didn't the bylaw enforcement apply to the whole city"?  answer: "Yes"....so how were they different areas?!

[danbrotherston]

Though not my ideal, I do wonder if the best way forward right now is to encourage council to consider a slow build out of the program, starting in the (more dense and overall walkable) core/central neighbourhoods and expand that out slowly over the next several years. Still thinking on this of course, but it's just one idea I had to try to find a way to move forward.

That could be good value indeed. But the funding would likely have to come out of general revenues, which means that it would be shared by all property owners in the city. Or is there a way to have only the downtown wards' property owners pay for this? Or would this be small enough that it would be acceptable to distribute across all properties?

Yes, you can have an area rated billing for sidewalk clearing...we already have this in fact...I've been paying for city sidewalk clearing for years as I live in the downtown core clearing area.

The bonus part is in the less idiotically wasteful urban areas, it's even cheaper.

[danbrotherston]

That could be good value indeed. But the funding would likely have to come out of general revenues, which means that it would be shared by all property owners in the city. Or is there a way to have only the downtown wards' property owners pay for this? Or would this be small enough that it would be acceptable to distribute across all properties?

Yes, I've definitely thought that will be the main objection (or at least one of the objections). I do think this kind of thing happens fairly often though (where one segment of residents) bares the costs of services that they don't benefit from. I think of when I lived out in Williamsburg area and all of the expensive infrastructure that had to be but in place so my neighbours and I could have indoor plumbing and roads  But I understand that it may not be a palatable option because it seems unfair to suburban residents to pay for sidewalk clearing 'downtown'.

Well, downtown residents already pay for everyone else in the city....

[tomh009]

Is the actual report public yet somewhere?

The record went with staff's narrative....

In my opinion, staff substantially missrepresented the results of the study...they didn't exactly say the pilot was poor, but they strongly minimized the improvement in sidewalk conditions.

They also failed to in any reasonable way address the enormous discrepency between sidewalk conditions (60% good 15% bad) and tickets issued (7% notices issued)...they said "well they're different areas"...then I asked "didn't the bylaw enforcement apply to the whole city"?  answer: "Yes"....so how were they different areas?!

Is the report somewhere on the city web site? Or where did the Record get it?

[danbrotherston]

The record went with staff's narrative....

In my opinion, staff substantially missrepresented the results of the study...they didn't exactly say the pilot was poor, but they strongly minimized the improvement in sidewalk conditions.

They also failed to in any reasonable way address the enormous discrepency between sidewalk conditions (60% good 15% bad) and tickets issued (7% notices issued)...they said "well they're different areas"...then I asked "didn't the bylaw enforcement apply to the whole city"?  answer: "Yes"....so how were they different areas?!

Is the report somewhere on the city web site? Or where did the Record get it?

It is in the KCATC meeting minutes (I was at the original meeting)...I have the minutes in my email, but they are not yet posted, I am happy to email them to you if you DM me your phone number, but I'm hesistant to post them publicly.

Edit: And by phone number, I of course mean "email address".

[tomh009]

I found the KCATC meeting minutes but the report was not attached. Will PM email address.

For anyone interested, here are the meeting minutes.
https://lf.kitchener.ca/WeblinkExt/0/doc...Page1.aspx

[tomh009]

So, they say the survey is statistically valid. But they don't say how many people were surveyed, or by which method. Or give the responses based on the pilot type, or by geographic area. Were they willing to share any of this information at the meeting?

They propose four bylaw officers. How many were there last winter? Do they have any data on how long it takes to respond to snow-clearing bylaw complaints?

The "priority route" option, is this the same service as the "city-led full-service pilot"? It's about 70% of the cost, but it seems like only a small minority of the sidewalks would be covered. What does "Sidewalk Priority Route with less than 50% coverage is not operationally or financially viable" mean?

[danbrotherston]

So, they say the survey is statistically valid. But they don't say how many people were surveyed, or by which method. Or give the responses based on the pilot type, or by geographic area. Were they willing to share any of this information at the meeting?

They propose four bylaw officers. How many were there last winter? Do they have any data on how long it takes to respond to snow-clearing bylaw complaints?

The "priority route" option, is this the same service as the "city-led full-service pilot"? It's about 70% of the cost, but it seems like only a small minority of the sidewalks would be covered. What does "Sidewalk Priority Route with less than 50% coverage is not operationally or financially viable" mean?

Yes, I asked them many of those questions.

I asked at another time, the survey was done by a third party company...I'm not about to question their methods, but the questions themselves...weren't ideal.  I asked if they had broken it down by primary mode of the user, they did not, they only asked "do you use sidewalks"...everyone said yes, but that doesn't separate those who actually walk places, vs. those who take their dog out for a pee.  I did not ask if they broke it down by geographic area....there's a good bet you could regenerate the primary mode of the user by looking at geographic area.

Four bylaw officers is exactly what they had last year, they patrolled "the entire city"...so basically they could patrol anywhere that the other pilots were not going on, so they are not proposing any increase in this enforcement.  I'm trying to remember, I think they said that the bylaw officers visited each property they patrolled 3 times over the whole winter.  But I'm not sure how much of the city they hit.

I asked about response times, because this is a big issue, for called in complaints they claim they are able to visit quickly, there was no backlog. For patrolling, they do start after 24 hours...but obviously it takes a long time to do the city. Of course, they also were willing to recognize that the failure to enforce any time during snow (so possibly weeks at a time in our climate) is a weakness.

I didn't ask them much about the priority route, I have no idea why they were so against it....I was more frustrated by the minimization of the results of the successful pilot project.

At the end of the day there is a huge discrepency between what they claim (7% of people recieve notices, and almost all clear their snow after a notice) and the 40% of sidewalks that are not in good condition. They were unable to provide any satisfactory answer to that...claiming that it must just have been different sidewalks.

My theory is that it is a combination of the pathetic QOS on enforcement and the incredibly lax standards. The lax standards exist because council doesn't want to get too many complaints they'd get by issuing notices to 40% or even 20% of the city.

Barring any other developments, I will be going to council as an angry taxpayer and demanding that they not waste my tax dollars on bullshit "enforcement theater"...clearly their bylaw officers are not effective, and if they aren't willing to spend money on something that is effective, they should stop wasting my money on pretending to do something.

[dtkmelissa]

Here's a link to the staff report on the sidewalk clearing pilot. It goes to Committee on Aug 31st and to Council on Sept 14th. https://lf.kitchener.ca/WebLinkExt/DocVi...74355&cr=1

[danbrotherston]

You know, I very often do not agree with D'Amato, but in the case of sidewalk clearing, he has left the

"sidewalk clearing lobby" (or the "disabled lobby") or any other dismissiveness aside and focused on the issue and the reasons why it is an issue:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...afety.html

[plam]

You know, I very often do not agree with D'Amato, but in the case of sidewalk clearing, he has left the

"sidewalk clearing lobby" (or the "disabled lobby") or any other dismissiveness aside and focused on the issue and the reasons why it is an issue:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...afety.html

She resists easy categorization, being in some ways in favour of urban development but also somewhat fiscally conservative I think.

[danbrotherston]

You know, I very often do not agree with D'Amato, but in the case of sidewalk clearing, he has left the

"sidewalk clearing lobby" (or the "disabled lobby") or any other dismissiveness aside and focused on the issue and the reasons why it is an issue:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...afety.html

She resists easy categorization, being in some ways in favour of urban development but also somewhat fiscally conservative I think.

I wouldn't call her fiscal conservative, or at least, I don't think opposing bike lanes is particularly fiscally conservative.

I think it's more just standard conservatism.

[dtkvictim]

You know, I very often do not agree with D'Amato, but in the case of sidewalk clearing, he has left the

"sidewalk clearing lobby" (or the "disabled lobby") or any other dismissiveness aside and focused on the issue and the reasons why it is an issue:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...afety.html

She resists easy categorization, being in some ways in favour of urban development but also somewhat fiscally conservative I think.

Perhaps political categorizations, but I find it quite easy to categorize her as a poor journalist. She's grossly, one-sidedly misrepresented stories that I had enough insider information on to know how wrong she was. I don't know if this is was Dan was referring to (or just a difference of opinion), but it's hard for me to trust anything she writes now. That said, there isn't really anything contentious in this article, so that's good.

[panamaniac]

She resists easy categorization, being in some ways in favour of urban development but also somewhat fiscally conservative I think.

Perhaps political categorizations, but I find it quite easy to categorize her as a poor journalist. She's grossly, one-sidedly misrepresented stories that I had enough insider information on to know how wrong she was. I don't know if this is was Dan was referring to (or just a difference of opinion), but it's hard for me to trust anything she writes now. That said, there isn't really anything contentious in this article, so that's good.

Her column’s are opinion pieces, not news reports.