Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

We don't know for sure what MacNeil meant.

''fantastic" could be they did clear it really quickly. 

For clearing people's opinions of fantastic could differ...

Okay, sure. I take "fantastic" to mean something positive, in the opinion of the director of bylaw enforcement in this case. Whether she means "fantastic" as in "quick" or "thorough," you're right that we don't know.

My point was just that the "proactive enforcement" forces would be better spent reacting. Per the Record article, of 1,700 "homes" proactively inspected, 381 notices were issued. Of these, some proportion were "fantastic" according to staff but not in compliance with the bylaw (which, if enforced to its letter, would not see any sidewalks in compliance almost ever) and, of these, only one required a contractor be called.

In contrast with that, reacting to 861 complaints led to an unknown number of notices issued (I wonder why this number was left out), and 35 referrals to contractors. Clearly, focusing on complaints address more actual issues.

I mean, we can argue the nitty gritty, certainly there are differing opinions on what is most effective, and it depends on what's the metric on good, and even then, I don't any any data to say for sure what is best.  But I do think we're wasting our time.  I don't believe homeowner clearing with bylaw enforcement will ever be an effective policy, so I don't think the particular policy implemented matters much.

As for the numbers, I don't actually believe them.  I reported 12 sidewalks on Queen St. which were never cleared until the weather melted it.  So I don't know whether they were ever inspected, but I suspect the 35 has more to do with the number of inspections they managed to do, vs. the number that were actually uncleared.