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Winter Walking and Cycling
(04-19-2018, 02:42 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: There is a huge post in the Waterloo subreddit claiming motorized snow removal doesn't produce acceptable results …

Any such post is flagrantly incorrect, as a factual matter. All over the city there are sidewalk and path segments that are completely bare due to motorized snow removal. Maybe they are assuming no use of melting agents whatsoever. Anyway, even if that were true, the fix would be to either hire a bunch of people to follow the mechanical removal, or make individual property owners responsible for getting the sidewalks down from the 1cm or whatever left by the plow down to bare concrete. There is simply no legitimate argument for not getting rid of most of the snow using plows.
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(04-19-2018, 03:53 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-19-2018, 02:42 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: There is a huge post in the Waterloo subreddit claiming motorized snow removal doesn't produce acceptable results …

Any such post is flagrantly incorrect, as a factual matter. All over the city there are sidewalk and path segments that are completely bare due to motorized snow removal. Maybe they are assuming no use of melting agents whatsoever. Anyway, even if that were true, the fix would be to either hire a bunch of people to follow the mechanical removal, or make individual property owners responsible for getting the sidewalks down from the 1cm or whatever left by the plow down to bare concrete. There is simply no legitimate argument for not getting rid of most of the snow using plows.

DTK does quite well with motorized snow removal. I wish the rest of the city were as good.
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(04-19-2018, 03:50 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-19-2018, 02:40 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: That being said their definition of "chronic offender" is probably "the never ever not even once, clear the walk" as opposed to "it usually takes them more than 24 hours, but they'll sometimes occasionally, way too late, clear the walk.

Remember, in addition to being essentially unenforced the bylaw is also entirely inadequate.  You can abide by the bylaw with very very little work.

By any reasonable definition of “chronic offender” the number is probably best measured as a percentage of the total, rather than as a small integer count of offenders.

And of course you’re right about the bylaw. I’m not sure what the bylaw should say, but conceptually every snowflake should be required to be cleared from the sidewalk within 24 hours of falling. So if it has snowed 5cm in the last day, most sidewalks will be in bad shape, but any sidewalk with more than 5cm on it would be in violation. Actually maybe that is the definition: the amount of snow on each segment of sidewalk must be less than the total snowfall in the last 24 hours. That’s a bit too inflexible because the snow will be stomped down, but it’s at least heading in the direction of a reasonable definition.

Exactly, the 24 hour rule is one of convenience and clarity for bylaw, not effectiveness...even more so, a real snow clearing policy would clear major routes quickly and minor routes less quickly, such a biased bylaw is unlikely to ever be acceptable.
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(04-19-2018, 02:42 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: There is a huge post in the Waterloo subreddit claiming motorized snow removal doesn't produce acceptable results and the only solution is a huge bylaw crackdown on homeowners. I don't think any of the cities actually have the labour to enforce the bylaws in a meaningful way. It's obvious individual citizen complaints don't work, so they would have to have huge teams of bylaw officers patrolling every street throughout the winter and issuing tens of thousands of warnings and fines after every snowfall. Homeowners just won't take it seriously unless they are confident they will face consequences every time they fail to clear their sidewalk. The snow removal bylaws just seem like token efforts designed to fail from the beginning.

Other's have thoroughly debunked the obviously false statement that "mechanical" clearing isn't effective (especially ironic in the case that the vast majority of business properties have mechanical cleaners in addition to the city, probably a large percentage of sidewalks are mechanically cleared).

They may be objecting to low service levels seen in other cities which is a valid complaint, we could choose to do city clearing with very low levels of service.  That wouldn't be good either, although it would absolutely still be better than what we have now, which is many sidewalks blocked 100% of the winter.

The problem this bylaw suggestion misses though, is that the bylaw is utterly inadequate.  Even if 100% of homeowners hit it (we'd be better obviously) but it would still be weeks at a time when sidewalks are impassable.

The fact is, people who are willing to hire a huge force of bylaw officers are either deluding themselves into believing doing so would be free, or are strangely callous, that they'd rather hire people to enforce the bylaw than hire snow removal people.

Now, I have been part of this group before....and I've realized that I was misguided in my beliefs.  I felt that way because I as a homeowner diligently cleared my sidewalks (well in excess of the bylaw requirements) and felt that I shouldn't pay for other's failures.  (This was way back when I owned a car and never walked anywhere).  So maybe these people would be more amenable to billing those who have racked up bylaw complaints directly for the entire cleaning program.
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(04-19-2018, 06:02 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Exactly, the 24 hour rule is one of convenience and clarity for bylaw, not effectiveness...even more so, a real snow clearing policy would clear major routes quickly and minor routes less quickly, such a biased bylaw is unlikely to ever be acceptable.

Indeed. But the reason major routes are cleared first is that the snow clearing crew isn’t big enough to just do everything “all at once”. The bylaw pretends to conscript every property owner in the city into the snow clearing crew, so all the sidewalks can be cleared all together.

So probably if the city cleared the sidewalks major routes would be cleared rapidly. Small residential culs de sac would not be cleared for a couple of days after a major snowfall. But that’s still better than never being properly cleared as is the case now.
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I thought that this editorial was very well-done. I especially appreciated this part:


Quote:It's also a gender issue. First, fewer women own and drive cars, and therefore they make up a slight majority of pedestrians. Second, women are often the primary caregiver for children. Every person pushing a stroller came to at least one dead-end this weekend. Some had help from good Samaritans navigating the ice barriers. Many did not, and risked their own safety. Many others simply stayed indoors.

One of my bugbears is the nauseating frequency with which politicians of all stripes claim to be focused on making life easier for "hard-working families." Getting the damned sidewalks clear of snow in a reasonable time so parents could push their kids' strollers in safety would be a very easy way in which municipal politicians could prove it.
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(04-19-2018, 03:53 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-19-2018, 02:42 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: There is a huge post in the Waterloo subreddit claiming motorized snow removal doesn't produce acceptable results …

Any such post is flagrantly incorrect, as a factual matter. All over the city there are sidewalk and path segments that are completely bare due to motorized snow removal. Maybe they are assuming no use of melting agents whatsoever. Anyway, even if that were true, the fix would be to either hire a bunch of people to follow the mechanical removal, or make individual property owners responsible for getting the sidewalks down from the 1cm or whatever left by the plow down to bare concrete. There is simply no legitimate argument for not getting rid of most of the snow using plows.

Here's the post if anyone is interested. It's written by someone who used to work for a snow removal company and claims motorized snow removal is wholly adequate and the cities should instead focus on bylaw enforcement.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waterloo/commen...e/dxmx7ma/
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(04-19-2018, 09:50 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote:
(04-19-2018, 03:53 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Any such post is flagrantly incorrect, as a factual matter. All over the city there are sidewalk and path segments that are completely bare due to motorized snow removal. Maybe they are assuming no use of melting agents whatsoever. Anyway, even if that were true, the fix would be to either hire a bunch of people to follow the mechanical removal, or make individual property owners responsible for getting the sidewalks down from the 1cm or whatever left by the plow down to bare concrete. There is simply no legitimate argument for not getting rid of most of the snow using plows.

Here's the post if anyone is interested. It's written by someone who used to work for a snow removal company and claims motorized snow removal is wholly adequate and the cities should instead focus on bylaw enforcement.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waterloo/commen...e/dxmx7ma/

That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was expected utter nonsense, of the sort that makes one wonder how the author is able to keep themselves alive. Instead, it seems the author actually has some experience with snow clearing and has raised some interesting and relevant points.

However, they still provide no explanation of why an expansion from the many kilometres of sidewalk already cleared by the city to all the sidewalks can’t be done. The paths and sidewalks already cleared are usually in pretty good shape, even typically being completely bare within a few days of a snowfall. Even if the mechanical clearing can’t get it right down to the ground (which it can, so this sentence is moot, but whatever), getting rid of the bulk of the snow would be a major improvement. So I’d say this is a case where the facts on the ground (literally) trump one person’s specific experience and theorizing.
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This comment is so frustrating.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waterloo/commen...e/dxon1mj/

JayWalkerIT Wrote:It it realistic to expect sidewalks to always be clear to the bare pavement under any system? Is it necessary? Personally I think it is not.

-Even if the sidewalk is cleared, it's still winter and it likely will snow again soon or is snowing while the sidewalk is being cleared.

-Even if the sidewalk is cleared quickly and nicely, the roads probably are not, so someone in my neighborhood can push a stroller or walker for one block before being trapped at an intersection.

-The bylaw is 24 hours after it's stopped snowing - that can mean 1.5 weeks after it's started snowing. I also suspect this bylaw is difficult to enforce except in extreme circumstances where someone has left a large amount of snow for several days after the snowfall has stopped.

What I'm getting at is that I think it is unrealistic to expect sidewalks to always be clear. They won't be. The roads can't even be kept clear with a large fleet of plows that go much faster than a sidewalk machine. The roads can't be clear even though the slick conditions lead to property damage, injuries, and fatalities. No one expects the roads to always be clear and we accept that winter can mean hardship and that you may not be able to get where you want to go. We need to accept that for sidewalks as well. Having the city plow the sidewalk won't change that. Handing out more tickets won't change that.

The tickets are given out on a complaint basis which is fine. I shovel my sidewalk for the benefit of my neighbor, not because I fear a ticket. I shovel her sidewalk too because she's over 80. I shovel frequently. If I am threatened with a ticket, the results will not be as good. It will put me and many others in an adversarial mood and I will do the minimum I need to avoid a ticket and I will fight any ticket I do receive. Yes ticket where there are complaints and real problems, but ticketing where homeowners are already generally doing their best can backfire.
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It misses the point that no matter how many good actors we have, it's the bad ones that spoil the system. We need sidewalks to be consistently cleared, for their whole length, for them to be accessible; the current system, no matter how it gets adapted, cannot do that.
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That is incredibly frustrating.

I sure wish people would stop pretending there is no problem. Politicians included.

And all the more frustrating to claim that "roads too aren't perfect"...stinks of privileged ignorance.
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The wording would likely be difficult to get exactly right, but I would support a bylaw that states something to the effect of "property owners must clear sidewalks of accumulated precipitation once every 24 hours". Forget season, forget volume, forget what does and does not constitute a snowfall.

If people ensure their walks are clear every day, things will be considerably better for everyone. If a property's walk is reported to bylaw and they issue a notice that it must be cleared within 24 hours it is pretty apparent if it has or hasn't been done, even in the middle of a 3-day snow storm.

(My very strong preference would be municipal snow clearing, this is more just to explore possible options if the burden continues to be born by property owners.)
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This is more of a policy than a bylaw however. The problem is how do you prove that didn't happen (never mind that bylaws response time is well in excess of 24 hours most of the time), but they can come out and we all say, well it's obvious it wasn't cleared and the property owner can say "prove it"...then you have to prove it...the legal standard is impossible to meet, so basically no tickets issued under that policy would hold up.

The problem is multi-fold. The standard must be a) useful, b) clearly enforceable, and optionally c) non-draconian.
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I don't see how any bylaw option is realistically enforceable. Complaint-based bylaw enforcement works because most nuisance complaints aren't actually a big deal. Nobody is significantly impacted by their neighbour's lawn being an inch too long or having a car illegally parked in the street overnight. The WRPS handles after-hour noise complaints like loud parties. It's totally unrealistic to expect pedestrians to report dozens of sidewalk snow removal violations every snowfall, or for the current bylaw force to actually respond to them all.

That leaves regular patrolling of every street in the region, with bylaw officers issuing thousands of warnings and tickets. At that point it will almost certainly cost far more than simply having the cities remove the snow.
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(04-20-2018, 03:49 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: The WRPS handles after-hour noise complaints like loud parties.

Source?

While noise complaints 24/7 must be made through WRPS, 24/7 noise by-law officers attend unless there is other activity that would put that officer at risk (ie. Possible Domestic, Large crowds) or predominantly something by-law can't deal with (ie. underage drinking)

Coke
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