Walking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

This is hardly a new thought and certainly not on this forum.

If we were only allowed to express completely original thoughts here, there might not be a lot going on. It's just his viewpoint.

The problem is that
1. All-too-many non-pedestrians refuse to pay even such a small amount extra in property taxes. And why should they? After all the consequences to them of not clearing their sidewalks is—nothing.

This is the problem, and I think the solution is that there has to be some consequence to this dangerous behaviour. It generally irks me when people abuse bylaw reporting, but in this case I think the way to effect change is to make more ratepayers aware that having the sidewalks cleared is important, and that there are consequences when they aren't.

The best way to do this is to make the municipal government aware when property owners are deficient. At some point, it becomes cheaper for us collectively to just clear the sidewalks and stop fielding and following up on all these complaints. And the more property owners who get the threat of a city contractor's bill charged to them, the more who are likely to come to the realization that $50 extra in property taxes is a fair cost to having a system that works.