Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

First, the criteria which they said "it worked" was dubious at best.  It wasn't "the sidewalks were entirely clear", as is the ONLY relevant criteria.

Second, it was successful, except that people complained so much about being forced to maintain their sidewalks that staff stopped enforcing the cleared standard half way through, as reported by multiple independent sources, but not included in the staff report.

So, it wasn't successful in achieving clear sidewalks, but it was successful in achieving an uproar against clearing sidewalks.

As an addendum, it wasn't applied to "a small part" of the city, as you'll recall, as you voted on it (and for it I think), council required staff to implement full city enforcement...because certain councillors felt this was the right policy and didn't want to pilot it in a small area.

Of course, since enforcement of the entire city would be prohibitively expensive, only a small area was actually patrolled, which means there is actually no way to see how effective it was...but one thing is certain, if you actually want to patrol the whole city, costs are going to be far higher.

I sure wish you were aware of this.

Just an FYI: My new years resolution is to not mince words, your policies are broken and people are suffering.  Stop pretending otherwise.

Wait, what?  Who's pretending existing policies are working?  No one thinks the situation is fine... don't know where you're getting that from.  I also don't know who your "multiple independent sources" are.  I can only speak for myself, but yes, proactive enforcement did create an uproar, entirely as expected, from people that weren't clearing the sidewalks.  And I could care less.  If you're fortunate enough to own a property with a sidewalk in this city... then clear it to a reasonable standard or get fined until you do.  That was exactly the point and exactly why it worked.  And it was a small area, costing just 0.15% on the tax levy, it was planned to roll over the city in time.  Regardless, we could absolutely do the whole city each year (which is inefficient) at a tiny fraction of the cost of Ottawa-standard snow-clearing.

As an aside; suppose the city did this work... you realize who we'd be subsidizing right?  All of those living in apartments, condos, multiplexes etc... i.e. all the lower-cost homes out there without a sidewalk would end up paying higher property taxes (or via rent) to subsidize the snow-removal of those that are fortunate enough to have a sidewalk in front of their home.  I'd much rather subsidize people that can't afford any home.  Those are the people that are really suffering.

Subsidies, no, actually, as usual, people who live in multi-unit buildings are subsidizing single homeowners. Everyone in my building, all 60 households would pay the same tax every year, as a single house, that means we're paying roughly 30-40 times (we have slightly more sidewalk than a house) as much to clear the same sidewalk.

Clearing your sidewalk isn't free, unless your labor is free, and if your labor is free, I have a bunch of jobs which need doing.

But you're missing the point, do you think that homeowners pay taxes to clear the roads, so their road in front of their home is cleared?  NO! This is the whole point! We pay to clear roads so that we can get places. No matter where you live in the city, you will benefit from sidewalk clearing because you will have clear sidewalks to walk on. Why is this so hard for you to understand? I don't give one fuck what some homeowner gets, I care whether I can safely walk past their house.

As for who is pretending current policies are working, YOU ARE. You said that the cities pilot worked, I can tell you, it didn't...and it was rolled out to the whole city, right away, as requested by council.

And I'm glad you aren't afraid of residents freaking out about getting fined, but I'll point out again, staff, bylaw enforcement, stopped enforcing clear sidewalk standards, multiple people independently reported that bylaw told them that a sidewalk which was not clear of snow was clear enough, and that bylaw was not enforcing the "clear pavement" standard any longer, and was instead only enforcing "the homeowner made a best effort" standard. So clearly, someone didn't have so much gumption to continue offending homeowners as you do.