Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

See you've got it backwards. What people should do if they are good caring citizens is get together and shovel off the road in front of their houses. Save tax dollars and get even more exercise! Live near a park; you gotta go shovel that too if you walk your dog there or run on the paths.

This argument isn't lost on me.  I suppose I disagree with the distinction between what is the "City's" and what is the "Resident's".  In my mind, we are one.  We're owned, controled, and voted in by the residents to be caretakers of our city, with a mission to make it the best we can.  I don't see parks and trails as "city" property, it's everyone's property, same as roads community centres, libraries, and yes sidewalks.

Surely it's impractical to ask residents cut grass in our parks, or shovel snow on our roads due to the amount of work but it's not impractical to ask them to do their part for their city in clearing their sidewalk.  In most cases people are clearing the driveway anyway, it takes little time to do your sidewalk as well.  It's quite literally the only service we ask of those physically able.

It is impractical to ask them to clear sidewalks.  This is conclusively proven by the decades of efforts to achieve it, and the complete 100% failure to achieve clear walkable sidewalk at any time during the winter.

When do you admit failure?