Winter Walking and Cycling

[Chris]

Someone in a little John Deer was out this morning clearing the sidewalk.

I didn't report it. Pingstreet is gone and calling in doesn't seem to do much. I leave it to their 'active enforcement' crew.

[danbrotherston]

Someone in a little John Deer was out this morning clearing the sidewalk.

I didn't report it. Pingstreet is gone and calling in doesn't seem to do much. I leave it to their 'active enforcement' crew.

Their active enforcement crew will do nothing, and this was even noted in the staff report. I'm absolutely furious that council threw hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars on trying to pretend they're solving the problem when their own fucking study said it wasn't an effective policy.

If you are tired of calling to complain to bylaw (which I understand), call your councillor instead. They need to start hearing this more. Only they can fix this bullshit.

[KevinT]

I wonder if the city would respond via twitter as quickly as the region did to one of my concerns a few years back? Making it public tends to induce a response...

Twitter | KevinT3141 | Weed trimming beside ION tracks

[Bytor]

Someone in a little John Deer was out this morning clearing the sidewalk.

I didn't report it. Pingstreet is gone and calling in doesn't seem to do much. I leave it to their 'active enforcement' crew.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you report somebody who was clearing the snow from the sidewalk?

[Chris]

Someone in a little John Deer was out this morning clearing the sidewalk.

I didn't report it. Pingstreet is gone and calling in doesn't seem to do much. I leave it to their 'active enforcement' crew.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you report somebody who was clearing the snow from the sidewalk?

I wouldn’t report the clearing of the sidewalk. That was in responses to a question asking if I reported the blockage to the city.

I should have quoted the question for clarity.

[MidTowner]

If you are tired of calling to complain to bylaw (which I understand), call your councillor instead. They need to start hearing this more. Only they can fix this bullshit.

I have communicated with councillors in both Kitchener and Waterloo. I have always been polite, but I have wasted a lot of my time and theirs. They collectively have a mentality about this that won't be swayed by facts, or actual experiences of constituents.

Your thinking is right, councillors are the ones to fix this situation, but not these councillors. We need new ones this fall.

[danbrotherston]

If you are tired of calling to complain to bylaw (which I understand), call your councillor instead. They need to start hearing this more. Only they can fix this bullshit.

I have communicated with councillors in both Kitchener and Waterloo. I have always been polite, but I have wasted a lot of my time and theirs. They collectively have a mentality about this that won't be swayed by facts, or actual experiences of constituents.

Your thinking is right, councillors are the ones to fix this situation, but not these councillors. We need new ones this fall.

I mean, some councillors need to go, but I think at a city level, it's actually pretty strong.

I think what's needed for most of the councillors is to see broad support for funding this initiative.

My anger notwithstanding, I suspect that there'd have been a much better chance of this passing if it hadn't been in the middle of the pandemic when it came up.

FWIW...they massively squandered the opportunity, I think a lot of them, while they think this might be the right solution, are completely out of touch with the reality on our sidewalks--they walk to their mailbox and local park and don't really notice any of the problems. You keep pounding them with messages, pictures, etc. and they'll start to get the picture.

[plam]

I was out and about on my bike today. Wouldn't want to go to the market by car if I can avoid it. But I was also out near Victoria and Lackner. Biking on Wellington from Weber to Victoria wasn't bad; I guess Victoria gets all the volume. I noticed the multi-use trail on Victoria but didn't take it. Lackner was a well-cleared multi-use trail. Lorraine to Krug was OK. The painted bike lane on Lorraine isn't worth much especially in the winter.

[Acitta]

Walkers wanted as research project expands across KW

[MidTowner]

My anger notwithstanding, I suspect that there'd have been a much better chance of this passing if it hadn't been in the middle of the pandemic when it came up.

FWIW...they massively squandered the opportunity, I think a lot of them, while they think this might be the right solution, are completely out of touch with the reality on our sidewalks--they walk to their mailbox and local park and don't really notice any of the problems. You keep pounding them with messages, pictures, etc. and they'll start to get the picture.

It's come up prior to the pandemic. At least in Kitchener, it had worse support last year, and some used the pandemic and its financial impacts as an excuse. But it has been proposed in the past, and certainly it has always been within council and city staff's power to enforce the current bylaw to a much greater extent than it has been.

They have declined to do that, because it upsets homeowners. Councils and the municipalities have done as close to nothing as possible, and we shouldn't use the pandemic as a reason to absolve them for what has been ongoing negligence.

[danbrotherston]

My anger notwithstanding, I suspect that there'd have been a much better chance of this passing if it hadn't been in the middle of the pandemic when it came up.

FWIW...they massively squandered the opportunity, I think a lot of them, while they think this might be the right solution, are completely out of touch with the reality on our sidewalks--they walk to their mailbox and local park and don't really notice any of the problems. You keep pounding them with messages, pictures, etc. and they'll start to get the picture.

It's come up prior to the pandemic. At least in Kitchener, it had worse support last year, and some used the pandemic and its financial impacts as an excuse. But it has been proposed in the past, and certainly it has always been within council and city staff's power to enforce the current bylaw to a much greater extent than it has been.

They have declined to do that, because it upsets homeowners. Councils and the municipalities have done as close to nothing as possible, and we shouldn't use the pandemic as a reason to absolve them for what has been ongoing negligence.

It has come up prior, but the city has never invested in a half million dollar study which empirically demonstrated that city sidewalk clearing was extremely effective at improving sidewalk conditions and that people were happy with it.

That was by far the most progress ever made on it.

But when the study came due during the pandemic, it was the worst possible case, the city was already looking at a huge deficit (which turned out to be overblown anyway). FWIW...I feel staff presented the study in a very misleading way, by saying the sidewalks were "7% better" when they moved from ~13% blocked to ~6% blocked (i.e., sidewalks were blocked less than half as often as before, not 7% fewer).

As for the bylaw, they could enforce it 100% where every single homeowner is instantly ticketed if sidewalks are uncleared when the bylaw applies, and the sidewalks would still be garbage...the bylaw itself is fundamentally flawed.

[Bytor]

Relative transportation dangers, a chart.

[tomh009]

FWIW...I feel staff presented the study in a very misleading way, by saying the sidewalks were "7% better" when they moved from ~13% blocked to ~6% blocked (i.e., sidewalks were blocked less than half as often as before, not 7% fewer).

This. I don't know whether the staff were totally clued out about the use of statistics or intentionally misrepresented them. Either way, it made the sidewalk-clearing look far less effective than it really was.

[danbrotherston]

FWIW...I feel staff presented the study in a very misleading way, by saying the sidewalks were "7% better" when they moved from ~13% blocked to ~6% blocked (i.e., sidewalks were blocked less than half as often as before, not 7% fewer).

This. I don't know whether the staff were totally clued out about the use of statistics or intentionally misrepresented them. Either way, it made the sidewalk-clearing look far less effective than it really was.

I suspect it was intentional, and I suspect it was as directed by council...I raised it a number of times, both with council and with staff, and nobody asked "Oh, I'm not sure what you mean, oh that's a good point" no...instead of engaging as they did for other questions they always quickly shushed it down, and ignored the question.

So I figure they were told, we're not going to pass this, downplay it please so the story is better when we do the thing that the study says doesn't work.

[Bytor]

Using bikes in winter or taking your kids somewhere with them is impossible, don'tcha know.

https://twitter.com/bmdoucet/status/1488211901242916872