Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

Speaking specifically to whether we could fund it?  Yes, Kitchener is in great shape financially, we could conceivably afford to pay for this service, but here's the rub.  At $4 million in one time costs and an additional ~$3.5 million in annual operating costs, it would be ALL we could afford to do over the next many years.  There are a few issues with this:

-  I remain convinced this service in other cities is not good.  I follow it very closely and have pictures sent often (daily recently) from other cities like London.  It's a LOT of money for mediocre value.

- The environmental harm, CO2 from sidewalk plows + about 70 more dump trucks of salt into the earth each year... on the heels of our council committing to environmental targets no less.

- Residents have been clear in every statistically-significant survey we've put out-- the vast majority want us to try to maintain services and hold taxes to inflation.  I know many here may not care... but the point is there are limits to tax increases.  Especially with regressive property-taxation like ours.  Remember, an ultra-wealthy Google-couple pulling in $300K in salary pays the same tax on their $400k condo as a widower on a $30k pension in the modest $400K home she raised her family in.  We need to consider these people too.

- As mentioned above, we could probably perform this service (though as poorly as others) and keep taxes near inflation... but what we need to realize is one of two things will happen; either taxes will rise well above inflation (highly unlikely) or other progressive things will begin to get (perhaps quietly) cut, or scaled back.  What things?  Well I know this council intends to spend a lot more on slowing traffic down, cycling infrastructure is a big ticket item (many signed pledges for), affordable housing, and I personally want to better leverage technology and our narrowband streetlight network for smart-city initiatives.

This is what we must balance.  I get people here don't have to acknowledge this reality, but I do, and it is the reality.  Even if other cities cleared snow well, I'd still struggle losing other progressive items like those mentioned above due to the huge cost... but when they can't... when I hear people with disabilities can't traverse sidewalks in places like Ottawa and London a week after a snowfall... I think maybe we at least try to go after the 10-15% that don't clear their walk first.  And despite popular belief, we haven't tried before, or put ANY new dollars towards enforcement in my 8 years on council.  That is, until this year, and bylaw has just begun trying to change behaviours.

What convinces you that the service in other cities is not good? Have you ever seen any data on it? You have alluded to poor service in Guelph, London and Ottawa. Now you mention receiving photos of poor service in London. That's just not my experience in London, and I don't think that pictures being snapped by people wanting to demonstrate the poor job the city is doing are excellent data on which to base a decision.

I wonder why the most important question is not far and away "what would work best to keep sidewalks clear"? Has anything been done to figure out what that is? TriTAG at least undertook to try on a small scale to apply some methodology to see whether the current system in Kitchener is working. Is there really no actual data we can access showing the actual performance of other cities' systems?

I think a lot of your other considerations are important ones, but ultimately secondary. A lot of people here will definitely sympathize with your point about CO2 emissions for sure, but that's not a primary consideration. After all, the City spent tax dollars this winter to buy gas-powered snow blowers to give away to private citizens.

This is the same councillor who has repeatedly accused others of "cherry picking" pictures when they show pictures of blocked sidewalks in Kitchener.  

He is also the same councillor who voted against implementing a pilot project to actually evaluate what the best solutions is.

Between these two things, I don't believe he has a real interest in honest data collection.

As for snowblowers, I cannot recall for sure, but it might have been this councillor who actually requested the snow blower program...certainly he voted for it.