Winter Walking and Cycling

[plam]

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.

Sorry to hear about that. This is really something that should be a city responsibility in general, right?

[bravado]

You would think that "enabling the ability to get around the city" is close to job #1 for a municipal government. Turns out it isn't even on the list if you are in the wrong kind of vehicle.

[cherrypark]

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.

[danbrotherston]

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.

So much this.

But what is infuriating is that literally every other city and town I routinely visit in Ontario has municipal sidewalk clearing. And every single one has vastly clearer sidewalks than KW, and yet you still have city councillors who sit there and INSIST that property owner clear is better. At this point, it's intentional dishonesty.

[Acitta]

Waterloo walks into the future as driving eases, cycling rises, and transit stalls

How we get around in Waterloo Region is changing and walking is leading the way, new evidence shows

New data shows the City of Waterloo is a pedestrian capital. Residents complete 47,710 trips on foot every weekday. That’s one in six trips made by residents every day.

According to the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, released in December by the Ministry of Transportation, Toronto is the only place in south-central Ontario where walking is more popular, with walking accounting for one in five trips residents make.

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.

[tomh009]

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.

I do think that the student population in Waterloo is a significant factor in the relatively high frequency of walking in Waterloo.

[neonjoe]

Funny thing, just by the quote that you included I knew it was an Outhit column.

[danbrotherston]

It's not just students, but the form and location of the schools specifically. Kitchener has thousands of Conestoga College students who definitely don't walk as much as UW or Laurier students.

But to think we do all that without having cleared sidewalks. Motonormativity. Even when walking IS a popular common form of transportation it doesn't get the same attention and care that driving gets.

[MidTowner]

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.

[danbrotherston]

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.

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.

[MidTowner]

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.

[danbrotherston]

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.

I agree, that it would be better if they stopped lying.

The problem is that they cannot legally do so. The sidewalks are required to be cleared by our equivalent of the ADA requirements. So they have to pretend that they actually are.

What pisses me off is that you can actually have a conversation with members of council, but I have found no combination of words, pictures, or even experiences that will convince them that our current system is broken. For some, this is probably because they do not care, others are simply unwilling to acknowledge the problems because it would mean they have to do something different (and of course, spending money on doing good work is anti-thetical to their beliefs).

Again, part of why I gave up and left. Admittedly, if you just want to fix the sidewalk problem, you don't have to go nearly as far as you think. London, St. Marys, even Elmira have municipal sidewalk clearing that is infinitely (yes, infinitely, the denominator is 0 after all) better than Kitchener's.

[ac3r]

We should force every council member to spend a winter navigating the city using a cane/walker, bus transportation and average winter footwear. While I don't think they'd actually put any effort into improving the sidewalks, at least they'd know...

[cherrypark]

I have long thought that council (and some city/region planners) should have a vocational requirement to use the services they dictate. Snow clearing (or lack thereof) brings it to mind annually.

[dtkvictim]

It bet it would end up like the Ottawa city councillor who gave up on the "ride transit for a week" challenge because they were too busy and had work to do...