Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

I just submitted a report on Pingstreet for that address, but the app is really buggy in Android and wouldn't let me upload a photo and kept hiding the navigation bar and text entry fields.

That's 111 Weber St W for anyone else submitting a report. Let's see if we can get the city to care about this single location.

It's very possible that the City of Kitchener considers that passable.

I finally actually asked to follow up on a specific address I had called in (I don't know why I thought of this before). I called a week ago about several addresses who are chronic offenders, and noted today that one of them I passed was in the same state as it has been all winter. Today, I asked whether any action had been taken in regards to my complaint. Someone in bylaw informed me that a bylaw officer had inspected and "found it passable." Passable by whom? "Passable." The person on the phone was very smart not to elaborate as to what "passable" means.

Most important, though, is that I was told that the ice and snow left to accumulate and eventually separate the sidewalk from the crosswalk in the case of a corner lot, is an "operations issue." The property owner is not expected to clear this.

I have actually heard this from staff at the City of Waterloo before, and once from City of Kitchener two or three years ago. But, this winter, I have called bylaw to complain about this specific issue (this is the one that impacts me personally most) at corner lots, and my complaints have been accepted. I thought the reason the sidewalks remained the way they are was for the reason that staff was giving me: that there was a high volume of complaints to handle. That's not the case: staff believes that these sidewalks are "good enough." I think that could actually be the case with 111 Weber Street West.

Lol, if they think 111 Weber is acceptable, that's a good joke.  I'm a fully able (relatively) young adult, and it was so icy a few weeks back that I wasn't able to walk on it.

The fact is, you could be right, but it's only the latest in a very long list of things wrong with bylaw.

I have only seen two instances where calling bylaw actually resulted in a change to conditions. The first, was an overgrown bush blocking the sidewalk on Victoria St. That took 8 weeks or so to get cut back by the city. I followed up multiple times, and was at one point told that the person who handled property standards cases was on vacation for two weeks, and that nobody was filling in for them....

The second was a sidewalk on Park St. that I called in every day, and after a month or so, the city crews came out and dumped about 10-20 kg of salt on the half-foot thick ice that had built up. The next day it snowed again, and the sidewalk remained blocked again for the remainder of the winter.

I know of no other instance where my calls have lead to any meaningful result.

You want to know why I'm not terribly patient with bullshit from our pols on this issue.