Walking in Waterloo Region

[ijmorlan]

It’s definitely pretty poor. You’re right that the worst part is that the clock doesn’t start until the snow stops falling, and resets if it starts again. I remember a number of occasions in which enforcement would effectively be on pause for a two week period, since snow (even if small amounts) fell intermittently during that time.

That having been said, I do think it’s important to lodge complaints, so the municipality knows that people are being inconvenienced. The modest changes to the City of Kitchener’s enforcement practices last year, supposedly as a result of increasing complaints, really did have an impact. I don’t see a wholesale rethink of the way sidewalks are (not) cleared, unless the municipalities hear often that it’s just not working.

That reset thing is really stupid. It should be more like “within 24 hours of snow beginning”, regardless of whether it is still snowing, stopped and started again, or what. So continuous snowfall would require daily cleaning, which seems somewhat reasonable as a minimum requirement. Of course this ignores that the real solution is municipal sidewalk clearing, rather than discussing the details of a bad policy.