Winter Walking and Cycling

[the_councillor]

2. It is very expensive.  Using Ottawa as the model, the gold-standard in Canada of sidewalk-clearing (and a city that's been over-budget on snow clearing for 7 straight years) would indicate at least a 5% tax increase on top of a required inflationary increase for this level of service:

Not as expensive as having everybody shovel their own. Unless the city is full of unemployed people, their time is worth something; several hours worth of time every year is worth more than any estimate I’ve ever heard of the cost of City clearing. If people had a choice between clearing their own sidewalks and paying $40 a year or something, how many people do you think would keep shovelling their own? Note, that just not shovelling it and taking an infinitesimal chance of being ticketed isn’t what I’m talking about — I’m talking about actually shovelling it.

Also it is obviously way cheaper to clear sidewalks than roads; but nobody raises the idea of only clearing some lanes of the road in order to leave room in the budget for sidewalks.

What is so hard about understanding this basic logic? Until you explain, in detail and with specificity, what is wrong with the above line of thinking, you’ll have to pardon me for doubting your sincerity in claiming you have actually considered this issue.

Let me put the logic another way... or better yet, put you in the decision-making place where council lives.

Simplifying capital/operating expenditures for the moment to make them applicable to this situation-- the budget we just approved had somewhere around 1.5 million in funds we could use to be progressive.  We invested largely in affordable housing, climate change, cycling and improving city-tree-maintenance.  Citywide snow clearing (at the Ottawa level) would be in the range of 6 million every year (plus inflation)... my napkin-math est.  This means if we started allocating ALL disposable funds now, and did nothing else... we could roll out the service sometime in 2024. 

Four years would go by with no further advancement on climate change, no advancement on a minimum grid for cycling, no advancement in affordable housing or anything else people care about.  You doubt my sincerity of thought and consideration on this issue?  I've researched, asked questions, written articles, and I'm spending my time detailing thoughts here late on a Saturday night, months before the actual vote.  And I'm spending it with people I know are unlikely to agree, rather than most who prefer an echo-chamber of the like-minded.  I'm not sure your expectations of consideration are entirely fair.