Winter Walking and Cycling

[jeffster]

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.

Let me put the logic another way... or better yet, put you in the decision-making place where council lives.

Simplifying capital/operating expenditures for the moment to make them applicable to this situation-- the budget we just approved had somewhere around 1.5 million in funds we could use to be progressive.  We invested largely in affordable housing, climate change, cycling and improving city-tree-maintenance.  Citywide snow clearing (at the Ottawa level) would be in the range of 6 million every year (plus inflation)... my napkin-math est.  This means if we started allocating ALL disposable funds now, and did nothing else... we could roll out the service sometime in 2024. 

Four years would go by with no further advancement on climate change, no advancement on a minimum grid for cycling, no advancement in affordable housing or anything else people care about.  You doubt my sincerity of thought and consideration on this issue?  I've researched, asked questions, written articles, and I'm spending my time detailing thoughts here late on a Saturday night, months before the actual vote.  And I'm spending it with people I know are unlikely to agree, rather than most who prefer an echo-chamber of the like-minded.  I'm not sure your expectations of consideration are entirely fair.

I think what you're trying to say is, 'at the end of the day, the costs would be more than what the majority of taxpayers would agree to pay and the standards are going to be significantly less than what the actual users would like'.

I think too that someone mentioned that we can clear roads fairly quickly (though driving around today, there are still some side streets that are snow packed) so why not sidewalks? That answer is profound: the speed of a road snowplough is much greater than a vehicles that would be on the sidewalks.

Other factors NOT included: health and wellbeing of the actual workers. Driving the smaller machines on sidewalks are a major health risk and should be very limited. These guys that do this have other jobs that need to be done in the city, and they can't be doing 8 hours a day on the beat, not without hurting themselves and going to leave.

I do agree with the city that the best option is limited snow removal on sidewalks and enforcement on most sidewalks. An alternative though might be though is to have those involved in neighbourhood committees to use city own snowblowers to clean blocks of sidewalks. Volunteer work, or something along those lines. Even work with the school boards to see if this sort of work could contribute towards the students needed volunteer work for graduation.