(12-07-2024, 06:08 PM)Acitta Wrote: Having found myself with a health issue that prevents me from cycling and necessitates that I hobble around with a walker, I am confronted with the difficulties that even a small amount of snow causes for navigation, especially getting on and off a GRT bus. Even when a property owner does a reasonable job of clearing the sidewalk, along comes a plow clearing the bike lane and throwing the snow onto the sidewalk. Even an inch of snow at the curb cut makes crossing intersections a chore. Today, coming back from the Kitchener Market, the bus driver put down the ramp for me at the Stirling/Mill stop, but it didn't go all the way past the snow, so even getting off the ramp to the sidewalk was difficult. In past winters, even when I was normally ambulatory, getting over a snowbank to enter a bus could be a struggle. I am not going to have a good winter. Even without the snow, navigating uneven sidewalks and poor transitions between the sidewalk and the road at intersections is not so easy.

(12-11-2024, 11:16 AM)cherrypark Wrote: Perpetual debate of "fairness" in KW about snow clear responsibilities that seems to always land on "its too expensive and a pared back program supporting clearing on arterial and high pedestrian areas is unfair because taxpayers aren't getting their suburban sidewalks cleared too". As well as many using mediocre clearing in other cities as an excuse of why it wouldn't be worth the cost here either.

Exceptionally tiring.

(01-08-2025, 08:33 PM)Acitta Wrote: Other residents of this region are far less likely to walk. Kitchener residents walk for one in nine trips they make. Cambridge residents walk for one in 11 trips. Township residents complete one in 12 trips by foot.

(01-21-2025, 08:59 AM)MidTowner Wrote: Does anyone have any real sense if the municipalities are enforcing their snow clearing bylaws? I think Waterloo may be, but it seems like Kitchener isn't. They say "yes," but that the volume of complaints is high, only so many bylaw officers, etc. But many sidewalks that have not been done a single time this season just get worse and worse, exacerbated by the thaw and freeze over the weekend which made some of the thickly-packed stuff difficult to traverse.

I'm just curious if anyone has the straight dope on it, and whether we just have to wait for natural conditions to take care of things eventually.

(01-21-2025, 03:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I am laughing and crying. Because I asked basically the same question 13 years or so ago. Spent 10 years of that learning, evolving, advocating, then I moved out of the city, at least in part because the sidewalks were intolerably blocked every winter and I did not foresee that ever changing. So no, I don’t think anything will ever change. But if you call your ward councillor there’s a small chance they’ll eventually clear some habitually uncleared sidewalks, once, after 2-4 weeks of constant calling. Might be worth it if you go every day. But call your ward councillor, not staff would be my advice. Ask to be CCed on the internal email.

(01-22-2025, 09:05 AM)MidTowner Wrote:

(01-21-2025, 03:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I am laughing and crying. Because I asked basically the same question 13 years or so ago. Spent 10 years of that learning, evolving, advocating, then I moved out of the city, at least in part because the sidewalks were intolerably blocked every winter and I did not foresee that ever changing. So no, I don’t think anything will ever change. But if you call your ward councillor there’s a small chance they’ll eventually clear some habitually uncleared sidewalks, once, after 2-4 weeks of constant calling. Might be worth it if you go every day. But call your ward councillor, not staff would be my advice. Ask to be CCed on the internal email.

A few years ago, I exchanged a number of e-mails with my then-councillor, and had a conversation with a bylaw supervisor. The latter said to me that bylaw officers were out and about, but that if their opinion it could be walked on, it was okay, whether it was clear or hard-packed or otherwise.

Neither I nor my councillor (and I do think she was trying) could get an answer as to what kind of direction (if any) the bylaw officers were given in determining whether something was passable beyond that it be passable. These tend to be able-bodies adults, and there was no sense of whether they were directed to try to determine if it was passable for someone in a wheelchair, or a child, or someone unsteady on his feet.

It was an ordeal. It's arguably worse now, because I don't even know for sure if anyone is out at all, and I'm starting to suspect not. I guess I'll e-mail my current councillor and see what I can find out.

Personally, I think it would be better if they just said "Sidewalks not maintained during winter. Use at own risk." and abandoned this polite fiction. It's a bit discouraging to walk down sidewalks that have never been cleared, and then see a City of Kitchener truck abundantly spraying salt all over a parking lot. But if we all agree that's "just the way it is," at least there would be clarity.