Winter Walking and Cycling

[ijmorlan]

2. It is very expensive.  Using Ottawa as the model, the gold-standard in Canada of sidewalk-clearing (and a city that's been over-budget on snow clearing for 7 straight years) would indicate at least a 5% tax increase on top of a required inflationary increase for this level of service:

Not as expensive as having everybody shovel their own. Unless the city is full of unemployed people, their time is worth something; several hours worth of time every year is worth more than any estimate I’ve ever heard of the cost of City clearing. If people had a choice between clearing their own sidewalks and paying $40 a year or something, how many people do you think would keep shovelling their own? Note, that just not shovelling it and taking an infinitesimal chance of being ticketed isn’t what I’m talking about — I’m talking about actually shovelling it.

Also it is obviously way cheaper to clear sidewalks than roads; but nobody raises the idea of only clearing some lanes of the road in order to leave room in the budget for sidewalks.

What is so hard about understanding this basic logic? Until you explain, in detail and with specificity, what is wrong with the above line of thinking, you’ll have to pardon me for doubting your sincerity in claiming you have actually considered this issue.