Walking in Waterloo Region

[Pheidippides]

Implementing a reporting tool within pingstreet should not be that hard. Just have some setting on the city side that allows/disallows submissions and shows you a message why "24 hours has not past since the end of the last snow event currently we are not currently accepting complaints."

Wouldn't it be nice if all the local governments and agencies took a service first approach rather than shifting responsibility. You see this approach in all the great hotels and retailers. You have a problem and your first contact works and stays with you until the problem is resolved to your satisfaction. Think about all the resources that went in to playing not-my-job-ping-pong with that tweet instead of staying solution focused. Someone should have said "you know what, that isn't our area to clear, but I've got a plow a few blocks from there, they can clear it and I'll remind X yo clear it next time." Done. I think that is the Disney philosophy.

Terry o'reilly on his cbc show Under the Influence had a podcast about service a few years ago that was great:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluenc...-1.2801772

[Markster]

The TriTAG twitter feed is a great way to gauge the things that TriTAG are talking to staff and politicians about. That a report was pursued to consider winter sidewalk plowing was a direct result of advocacy over a year ago.

[Canard]

Well it looks like it didn't work, otherwise we wouldn't have been discussing this for the past however many pages...?

[Markster]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it approve a $26 per household tax increase.

What you can do is encourage the public to keep talking about it, until they convince the horse council that it's worth it the cost.

[Canard]

I guess that makes sense. Keep at it, and don't let them off easy. It's something we all want!

[danbrotherston]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it approve a $26 per household tax increase.

What you can do is encourage the public to keep talking about it, until they convince the horse council that it's worth it the cost.

Council or staff?  Staff recommended against the increase (and also seemed to do insufficient work to approve it at that council meeting).  I'm not sure how much power staff has, or how much staff is trying to please council, or how much council and staff interact before the official recommendation (i.e., did staff know that the majority of council wouldn't have supported a recommendation for sidewalk maintenance?).

Learning the ropes of municipal politics is interesting.

Regardless, this issue shouldn't be dropped.  The lack of sidewalk maintenance is just shameful now.  I wish I could drag council (and staff) out by their ears and watch the mother and daughter struggle to help their elderly grandmother (assumptions about familial relations) over the snow bank on the sidewalk I watched from the bus yesterday.

Shameful is the right word for that.

[NotStan]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it approve a $26 per household tax increase.

What you can do is encourage the public to keep talking about it, until they convince the horse council that it's worth it the cost.

Council or staff?  Staff recommended against the increase (and also seemed to do insufficient work to approve it at that council meeting).  I'm not sure how much power staff has, or how much staff is trying to please council, or how much council and staff interact before the official recommendation (i.e., did staff know that the majority of council wouldn't have supported a recommendation for sidewalk maintenance?).

Learning the ropes of municipal politics is interesting.

Regardless, this issue shouldn't be dropped.  The lack of sidewalk maintenance is just shameful now.  I wish I could drag council (and staff) out by their ears and watch the mother and daughter struggle to help their elderly grandmother (assumptions about familial relations) over the snow bank on the sidewalk I watched from the bus yesterday.

Shameful is the right word for that.

My street doesn't have sidewalks.  It can be several days before it is cleared well enough for soemone using a walker to be able to get through it.  I'm sure travel by wheelchair is impossible for a significant part of winter.

[panamaniac]

I was driving along Charles this morning and there was a dude in a mobility scooter.... on the road.

The sidewalk was perfectly clear... like bone dry.

But I'm assuming he just gave up and was rolling along on the road since he couldn't be sure if the "mouths" of the sidewalks would be shovelled or not at intersections...

How do other cities handle this and why isn't this an issue that TriTag is pushing to the media to do something about and get some movement on having the Region take care of this?  Seems like it would be right up their alley.

They're often, if not usually, on the road, with or without snow, no?

[Canard]

No...?

[danbrotherston]

I was driving along Charles this morning and there was a dude in a mobility scooter.... on the road.

The sidewalk was perfectly clear... like bone dry.

But I'm assuming he just gave up and was rolling along on the road since he couldn't be sure if the "mouths" of the sidewalks would be shovelled or not at intersections...

How do other cities handle this and why isn't this an issue that TriTag is pushing to the media to do something about and get some movement on having the Region take care of this?  Seems like it would be right up their alley.

They're often, if not usually, on the road, with or without snow, no?

Often? Usually? Really?  Occasionally I see them on the road on residential streets.  Rarely if ever do I see them on busy roads instead of sidewalks.  

Also, yet another benefit of having better bike infrastructure: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/...structure/

[ijmorlan]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it approve a $26 per household tax increase.

What you can do is encourage the public to keep talking about it, until they convince the horse council that it's worth it the cost.

Council or staff?  Staff recommended against the increase (and also seemed to do insufficient work to approve it at that council meeting).  I'm not sure how much power staff has, or how much staff is trying to please council, or how much council and staff interact before the official recommendation (i.e., did staff know that the majority of council wouldn't have supported a recommendation for sidewalk maintenance?).

Learning the ropes of municipal politics is interesting.

Regardless, this issue shouldn't be dropped.  The lack of sidewalk maintenance is just shameful now.  I wish I could drag council (and staff) out by their ears and watch the mother and daughter struggle to help their elderly grandmother (assumptions about familial relations) over the snow bank on the sidewalk I watched from the bus yesterday.

Shameful is the right word for that.

Totally agreed.

Your mention of elderly person and other mentions of people with mobility issues makes me wonder what happens if this goes to the human rights tribunal. Are we really even allowed to run the city in a way that results in unreasonable mobility barriers for a significant portion of the population?

[danbrotherston]

Totally agreed.

Your mention of elderly person and other mentions of people with mobility issues makes me wonder what happens if this goes to the human rights tribunal. Are we really even allowed to run the city in a way that results in unreasonable mobility barriers for a significant portion of the population?

Heh, I've also wondered about the human rights tribunal. I doubt the courts are quite there, but frankly, it should be, to me it just seems obvious, the right to walk somewhere (safely) shouldn't be up for debate.

For the record, my walk home tonight, quite bad, I reported at least 50 uncleared sidewalks. Weber St. in Waterloo was just egregious, duplexes for rent. Probably between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 uncleared. I was pretty frustrated my last call to the bylaw message machine.

[darts]

Totally agreed.

Your mention of elderly person and other mentions of people with mobility issues makes me wonder what happens if this goes to the human rights tribunal. Are we really even allowed to run the city in a way that results in unreasonable mobility barriers for a significant portion of the population?

Heh, I've also wondered about the human rights tribunal.  I doubt the courts are quite there, but frankly, it should be, to me it just seems obvious, the right to walk somewhere (safely) shouldn't be up for debate.

For the record, my walk home tonight, quite bad, I reported at least 50 uncleared sidewalks.  Weber St. in Waterloo was just egregious, duplexes for rent.  Probably between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 uncleared.  I was pretty frustrated my last call to the bylaw message machine.

My mailman must be a sherpa, he is able walk the sidewalks everyday even with the 5-10 cms of snow. Actually he must be canadian jesus, he'll skip the sidewalk entirely and just walk across lawns if he knows he has a letter for the next house.

[MidTowner]

For the record, my walk home tonight, quite bad, I reported at least 50 uncleared sidewalks.  Weber St. in Waterloo was just egregious, duplexes for rent.  Probably between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 uncleared.  I was pretty frustrated my last call to the bylaw message machine.

Just for clarity's sake, you actually reported 50 uncleared sidewalks?

[danbrotherston]

For the record, my walk home tonight, quite bad, I reported at least 50 uncleared sidewalks.  Weber St. in Waterloo was just egregious, duplexes for rent.  Probably between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 uncleared.  I was pretty frustrated my last call to the bylaw message machine.

Just for clarity's sake, you actually reported 50 uncleared sidewalks?

Yes, it was just ridiculous.  Weber St. North in Waterloo is a bad joke right now.  From University to Erb there's probably two dozen uncleared properties.  I call them in as I walk, but for portions there were too many to remember, and I had to stop and wait for the message machine message to play.