Winter Walking and Cycling

[chutten]

the_councillor, welcome to the thread and the board. We are happy to have you engaging with us here on this fraught, seasonal topic about how best to ensure people can safely and reliably transport themselves around here.

I'm in the "spend the money" camp. I think that even an exorbitant expense is worth it to clear the sidewalks in the cities, and that by shifting the expense to residents' wallets, labour, schedules, and health we are creating an unfair externality.

I know spending more money just isn't a political reality, though. Budgets are fixed, revenue streams grow slowly (especially taking inflation into account)... but if ever there were a topic that could wedge a property tax line item onto our invoices, I think sidewalk clearing might be it.

Do you think so? Could we fund that?

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.

Please correct me if I misinterpret: it sounds as though within the strictures of the present municipal funding arrangements (principally via property taxes, property taxes are a fixed proportion of property valuation irrespective of income, property tax increases greater than the rate of inflation are an excellent way to not be re-elected) it would be possible, but there are better programs to invest in.

(Well, depending on the reader's definition of "better", of course.)

Is there really no room to change the arrangement? I would think this winter would make an additional 100% tax-increase-funded snow-clearing line-item an easy sell. (That's certainly the sentiment on this forum, but we are of course not a representative sample).

Of course, there goes me, pre-supposing that it'd be better than what we have today. And there's no real way to measure that, is there.

Are there public sources of data (qualitative or quantitative) about municipal sidewalk snow clearing? You've been keeping an eye on this issue and have access to data we don't (what I wouldn't give for a public domain mandate from public institutions).

I wonder if there are standardized metrics for measuring snow clearing efficacy... average length of sidewalk between impassible segments? Impassible metre-days? At this point the only information I have is the anecdata on this forum from those who have experiences with nearby municipal sidewalk clearing and the weight of my own daily experiences walking my daughter to school in the mornings (the only sidewalks I can depend on being properly cleared are those in front of the school (I think they pay through the nose for priority care, but I'm not sure) and those that the city clears).

I crave something systematic and definitive and reproducible.

Once again, thank you for your continued engagement with us on this forum.