Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

I think the whirling brushes are unable to deal with deep snow...like, greater than say 4-6 inches. While most days we get less snow than this, (and with climate change we will rarely get this amount), we get road plows pushing giant piles which they would be unable to manage.  They are also less able to deal with ice, which plows don't really deal with anyway.

That being said, they do have a number of the brush vehicles, which they use in DTK. They do work very well, but like most things in our unsustainable wasteful suburbs, we just can't afford nice things.

So? Then just do it more often. If Oulu, Finland can clear within 3 hours of a 2cm fall, and do it multiple times per day if needed, we can, too. I mean, they'll keep plowing and plowing the roads until the snow stops. Just apply the same darn standards to the sidewalks that we apply to the darn roads. Oh, wait, that's too sensible for our municipal councillors.

Actually they don't plow all our roads during a snowfall, only priority 1 and sometimes priority 2 roads. Side streets are not done until snowfall stops.  And in any case, the issue of snow banks remains, when the road plow goes by, it creates a bank that the brushes probably can't clear.

And while I'd love to see a higher standard of clearing, I'd settle for any level of clearing at this point. Part of the problem remains our enormous excess of roads...we simply cannot afford to maintain them based on the tax rate we pay, now matter how much they scream about taxes.