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Winter Walking and Cycling
Aw shoot, I didn't know today was the "Coldest Day of the Year" ride. I always miss it each year, I'm surprised nobody posted about it here. I only saw a re-tweet about it on Twitter after the fact.
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(02-09-2019, 05:18 PM)Canard Wrote: Aw shoot, I didn't know today was the "Coldest Day of the Year" ride.  I always miss it each year, I'm surprised nobody posted about it here.  I only saw a re-tweet about it on Twitter after the fact.

Ahh, yeah, posting here would have been a good idea, that was a missed opportunity. Sad
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A Record story about people getting tickets for what they thought weren't worthy snowfalls:  https://www.therecord.com/news-story/917...ts-fuming/
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(02-13-2019, 02:32 PM)Spokes Wrote: A Record story about people getting tickets for what they thought weren't worthy snowfalls:  https://www.therecord.com/news-story/917...ts-fuming/

They probably could have found more sympathetic people: 

"But she was astounded to receive a notice recently from the city for failing to shovel her sidewalk, after a snowfall that she thought wasn't enough to justify getting out the shovel.

"I thought I'd let nature take its course. I thought by afternoon it'd be gone," she said."

If she got a ticket, that "afternoon" that it might have melted by, came more than 24 after snow.
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Here's an example of something bylaw apparently considered an infraction. It does seem like they are being a bit overzealous with the proactive enforcement to the detriment of the 95% of the city they haven't even visited, but I have little sympathy for people like that lady who can't be bothered to clear their sidewalks for more than 24 hours after a snowfall because "nature will take its course".

[Image: xY1Dt1G.jpg]
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What bothers me is that if they're calling that an infraction, why aren't they doing anything about the properties that are 10000x worse? (And I'm assuming they aren't based on property owners continued lack of action)
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(02-13-2019, 10:38 PM)Spokes Wrote: What bothers me is that if they're calling that an infraction, why aren't they doing anything about the properties that are 10000x worse?  (And I'm assuming they aren't based on property owners continued lack of action)

That example is not even remotely reasonable.  If that is the standard, then the city is setting themselves up for law suits because they don't come close to doing better than that on their own areas of responsibility.  They better be careful ...
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That's one of the reasons I always supported paying for sidewalk clearing. The city was NEVER going to be able to fairly enforce the bylaw.
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I agree the photo shown is not a reasonable. Just to clarify, we have someone here, first hand, stating that bylaw gave them a warning for this? And that there was no other sidewalk issues or changes between warning and photo?

If so, that is absurd, I almost wonder if bylaw made some other mistake.

But we still have no data on how often that happens, the record in their article could only come up with two people complaining, one of whom thinks leaving a sidewalk uncleared till it melts several days later is just fine.
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My point a few pages back about bylaw going on record saying they issued enforcement notices to people who had done largely "fantastic jobs" was related to that. It read that, if a bylaw officer sees an infraction, no matter how trivial, he has no discretion to ignore it.

At least enforcement of the existing bylaw may get property owners to see that the current system is not ideal for them, either. If councillors have complaints both from people who can not get around because sidewalks are clear, and from property owners who have received enforcement action because they did not clear their sidewalks.

Although, maybe not. Councillor Schnider seems like he is looking for arguments to maintain the status quo. From the article: "He's looked at the situation in Elmira, where the municipality clears sidewalks. It takes two plows up to 10 hours to clear the town's 68 kilometres of sidewalk, and the most common complaint is that walks aren't cleared quickly enough. Kitchener, by comparison, has 1,200 kilometres of sidewalk."

I mean, that makes complete sense to me. Kitchener has 18 times more sidewalk than Elmira, and more than 20 times the population, so surely it can afford many times the resources. In fact, I bet that's how it works with other services, like road clearing.

And "up to 10 hours" sounds great. Much better than the unknown length of time that could stretch into weeks here in Kitchener.
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If by-law officers really have no enforcement discretion, then that is a problem that needs to be addressed, istm.
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I think it's just further showing that this bylaw is broken
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If literally 99% of people in KW think this is bunk, can we not overrule the government or something? What mechanisms are in place to delete this ridiculous bylaw?

This morning I had to leave for work and couldn't spend 30+ minutes chizzeling out this one like 30cm patch of ice at the edge of my driveway and sidewalk. I had to dump a bit of salt on it and hope for the best. Rest of my sidewalk is (as always) perfectly dry and bare and the cleanest on our street. If I get home and find out we got a notice today I am going to raise hell and high water.
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Strongly encourage everyone to fill this out with scathing remarks.

https://t.co/S2uk9BY1hc
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(02-14-2019, 11:32 AM)Spokes Wrote: I think it's just further showing that this bylaw is broken

It is. The bylaw is clear in the standards it imposes on property owners. Very few property owners are in compliance with it for any length of time during the winter. Those are not the standards the municipal government would set for itself if it didn't delegate the work.
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