Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

Nobody is happy that we were unable to come up with a solution... but neither has any other city.  The only thing worse than not taking action is taking the wrong action.  Peterborough's sidewalk snow clearing standard is two days after a snowfall and (like every other city that does this work) you can bet there will be many times a year it exceeds 2 days.  We've had people skating on roads, live on CTV, a week after snowfall (and roads are easier to maintain than sidewalks).  I hardly believe that qualifies as 'car-free-living year round' unless your employer permits you to call in sick for 2+ days every time it snows.  I didn't support the pilot project in the first place because I knew what the results would be from researching other cities, but it did confirm to all that it wasn't a panacea, and that the cost was actually more than double staff's pre-pilot estimate.

So no, we didn't opt for a $10 Million/yr program that still left 6% of sidewalks impassible (actual data) but I would add:

- there was no mention by any councillor, or staff, to relax standards.  In fact, the sentiment was to come down hard on chronic offenders (unless they're unable to do the work, in which case...)

- we increased the sidewalk-clearing program for seniors/people with disabilities from 100 to 175 properties, and to increase that by 75 more properties each year until demand is met.  (At a cost of ~$118k now and ~$53k each subsequent year.)

- we changed pro-active bylaw enforcement to focus on priority-walking routes (e.g. school and shopping areas.)

- requested an issue paper in time for budget on how we might increase the number of pro-active inspectors through seasonal methods (e.g. deputize tree/forest maintenance staff for snow events in the winter.)

Like City-clearing, these changes won't solve the problem, but it is an improvement until a solution is found.  The difference is this approach leaves a funding-hope for other initiatives.  Unless you believe there's no limit to how high we can raise taxes*, approving full-city clearing would have frozen all other progressive actions for the better part of a decade, Covid or not.

(* Remember that we can't tax progressively.  Property tax does not distinguish between a single mother in a $450k townhouse vs. a couple of Google engineers in a $450k condo.)

Oh, I quite think some of you were happy to get your way.  I will fully admit though, I was wrong and you were right, doing the pilot was a waste of money. I mean, it gave very clear data, and I had hoped that data would sway council, sadly, I was wrong about that.

I do wish that you could admit you were wrong though, you claimed city clearing wouldn't improve things, and you were clearly wrong, the data shows that, the experience of those walking shows that. But you continue to persist in the belief that it doesn't solve anything. Your beliefs are still wrong, the pilot was successful, city clearing was supported by those who experienced it.

As to your points, you're wrong, Ioanidis explicitly talked about being worried about someone who "made what they felt is an effort to clear their sidewalk" getting a ticket, and he felt that was a negative thing. I know, I was there, yes, it was in the context of focusing on "repeat offenders", but he clearly suggested that he wanted to change the standard to ensure that some sidwalks which inspectors felt were unclear should not be ticketed if some effort was made. I was there, I was listening.

On the topic of repeat offenders. They make me very frustrated. But if you had read the staff report carefully, you might have seen this bolded underlined passage.
   
Repeat offenders make up less than 1% of the uncleared sidewalks that inspectors ticketed. So you (and Ioanidis) want to focus on 1% of the problem instead of 99% of the problem.  Please explain why this is? Yes, it is some of the more frustrating offenders, but not the biggest problem.

You did increase clearing for seniors, those with disabilities, great, you are choosing to implement the most expensive possible program. What a waste. Gazolla, in his own .... meandering....way was getting to this point...  If only one in six households in the city qualified for this program by being a senior or a disabled person, you would be spending over ten million dollars to run this program...of course, it's probably not that high, you'll probably never spend millions because you will probably never satisfy demand. But that's only my opinion.

In any case, the core of the issue is this. I am a taxpayer, and I am very angry that you are going to waste an excessive amount of money on pro-active enforcement. There is ZERO evidence that it works, I want my government to make evidence based decisions. Yes, I know you believe it will work, but you have no evidence for it.
   
Even the report explicitly states there is no evidence for it. So why are you wasting my money on it. If you were unwilling to spend on city clearing, whatever, that's a difference of opinion of priorities (yes, priorities, it's not a matter of affording it, we afford lots of expensive programs), but instead you wasted more money on ideas that have no evidence behind them. As a taxpayer, this is insulting.