Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

How disappointing that we have to put a whole business case together for the argument that "all people, regardless of transportation method, deserve snow to be cleared".

God it's weird and deliberately unfair that drivers pay a portion of all tax dollars and get all of the service.

Disappointing...yup.

Unfair....hell, that's the tip of the iceberg, do you have any idea how much parking I've paid for in my life.

[danbrotherston]

Just walked over to twitter and reddit...

This is *STILL* going on. I'm so frustrated, but fortunately, only by proxy. Lemme be frank, this was a big part of our motivation for leaving the city. The conditions for cycling were improving but I saw no progress on winter walking at all. It's very depressing to see that I was right.

I feel like I want to write a letter to my former councillor and explain to them the costs of not doing clearing. I mean, I know they pretend to care about equity and disabled people, but ultimately what the really care about is the tax rate. Well, driving (relatively) wealthy people out of the city is a bad strategy.

[cherrypark]

Those who use our sprawling suburban sidewalks as an excuse for why its intractable for the city to take on snow clearing in a reasonable time frame are telling on themselves.

The city had a chance to take the practical option of a partial clearing responsibility in the original study and naturally it lost out on the concern of cost efficiency and service level. Would be nice to opt out of utilities maintenance for those new sprawling areas as a downtown resident?

[Chris]

I like seeing the city sidewalk plows do a 10m section that is their responsibility then drive in the street to get to the next 10m section. I would guess a lot of the equipment is already driving past a decent sized portion of what needs to be cleared. It's frustrating to watch and even more frustrating to walk through in the snow.

[clasher]

The little bits at the end of Dill and Schneider in Victoria Park are the most insane bits of sidewalk like that, at least that I've seen before. Seems like they manage to dump 20kg of salt each time they do it too.

[ac3r]

I like seeing the city sidewalk plows do a 10m section that is their responsibility then drive in the street to get to the next 10m section. I would guess a lot of the equipment is already driving past a decent sized portion of what needs to be cleared. It's frustrating to watch and even more frustrating to walk through in the snow.

I hate that. I have always assumed it's some liability thing. Like...if the plow goes by and tears up some lawn or dislodges some stone edging, then the property owner would likely complain and could possibly force the city/region to pay for repairs. Then you've also got the sort of "yeah sorry, not in my job description, I only plow what I'm told to" attitude that some plow operators may have. Which I mean I can totally get behind when you're just making an hourly wage, but it isn't hard to just drive the plow through and be nice, rather than go onto the road and back onto the sidewalk.

[Bob_McBob]

Check out the laughable bullshit of a survey about sidewalk clearing the City of Waterloo just put up on EngageWR.

https://www.engagewr.ca/waterloo-sidewalk-snow

[plam]

"The real answer is to not expect property owners to clear their own sidewalks. The current policy makes no sense and does not seem consistent with the City's obligations under AODA."

[ijmorlan]

"The real answer is to not expect property owners to clear their own sidewalks. The current policy makes no sense and does not seem consistent with the City's obligations under AODA."

I filled out the survey and for a number of the questions in the middle I answered “Irrelevant. The City should clear sidewalks.”

At the end I was disappointed that there no way to comment on the budget increase proposals. One of the items included in the budget proposals is an increase in snow hauling, which is not something we need in my opinion. I think we already do too much snow hauling. I live on a dead end and they regularly truck away snow which could just be allowed to pile up, especially late in the season - there is no point in trucking snow away that will melt anyway in a few weeks.

[nms]

Here's what I put wherever additional comments were an option: "The City should be responsible for clearing all sidewalks within 24 hours of a major snow event regardless of whose property this fronts. If the City plows all sidewalks, it will make it easier for new sidewalks to be accepted in existing neighbourhoods. If roads and bike trails are also being plowed, why should pedestrians be third class? Or should we go back to the way it used to be and have all property owners responsible for clearing and maintaining the road in front of their house too?"

[danbrotherston]

Here's what I put wherever additional comments were an option: "The City should be responsible for clearing all sidewalks within 24 hours of a major snow event regardless of whose property this fronts.  If the City plows all sidewalks, it will make it easier for new sidewalks to be accepted in existing neighbourhoods.  If roads and bike trails are also being plowed, why should pedestrians be third class?  Or should we go back to the way it used to be and have all property owners responsible for clearing and maintaining the road in front of their house too?"

I mean, I like most of this, but I'm not sure it's complete. First, "major snow event" is like a technical thing the city declares and doesn't include all snowfall, or even all accumulation.

Second, the "within 24 hours" isn't actually a good standard. It one (of many) reasons the bylaw fails. We get snowfall that lasts 2, 3, even 4 days...now you're saying sidewalks can remain blocked for 5 days straight...and more, the road plow comes around after and refills all the windrows.

I think what you probably meant (and frankly, is a pretty normal and reasonable request) the city should plow the sidewalks, the same way they plow the roads...we already have policies and processes for this, if you want to work on creating a new priority list for sidewalks that differs slightly from the road plowing priorities, that's just icing on the cake...

[ijmorlan]

I think what you probably meant (and frankly, is a pretty normal and reasonable request) the city should plow the sidewalks, the same way they plow the roads...we already have policies and processes for this, if you want to work on creating a new priority list for sidewalks that differs slightly from the road plowing priorities, that's just icing on the cake...

On the survey it has a section about priority of various areas the City already plows. I just said that the City should prioritize all of them over the rest of the areas which they need to start plowing. Sidewalks on major roads, near schools and hospitals, etc. obviously are more important sidewalks on some random cul-de-sac. Right now of course they can’t prioritize all of them since they only have enough capacity to do part of the sidewalk network, but if they increase capacity to be able to do the whole network then they should be able to get the existing areas done in no time.

[dunkalunk]

For the priority question, I'd said pretty much everywhere, except prioritizing sidewalks in the same priority they prioritize arterial roads and GRT routes seems prudent to create a winter walkability network.

[danbrotherston]

Fundamentally I'm okay with prioritization of city clearing. I.e., same as roads, clear main roads and bus routes (and school routes, and pedestrian areas) DURING the storm, then work on less busy routes once the main routes are reliably clear.

I'll grant the "owner clearing is better" crowd one thing, yes, a random sidewalk on a cul-de-sac will be cleared sooner if the property owner does it (not that city clearing stops them doing it). What we have to get through their heads is that that is completely irrelevant. Nobody cares if joe blows sidewalk on a random cul-de-sac is cleared in the middle of a storm.

Unfortunately I think this is a product of two things...first, seeing sidewalk clearing as a service for property owners (it isn't, and it's so frustrating that this is such a common refrain even in the media) and the second is our hyperindividualism. We are completely blind to the system of sidewalks. "Oh my sidewalk is so clear isn't that great"...no...why would you think that?!