11-30-2016, 09:36 AM
(11-30-2016, 08:36 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: There really isn’t a colourable argument for the status quo at all. The only legitimate question is how thorough a job should the City do? So presumably they would have a small snow plow. Should it be followed by an army of low-rent people with shovels to clean up any small amounts missed by the snow plow? Is there anything else they could do? Should there be an option to have them do ones front walk and/or driveway? How should plowrows be handled? This is where the debate should be, not on a bogus debate about whether the City should be involved at all.
I'm originally a Londoner, and affirm danbrotherston's comment that the municipality there does a pretty terrible job of clearing the snow. You can see in Kitchener staff's report that their service standard is "snow-packed." Growing up, my father would clear the snow off the sidewalk adjacent to our house because it was part of our and other kids' route to school, and the municipality didn't do a very good job. But he and the City of London were working at cross purposes: if he cleared it before they did and put some sand down, the bobcat would push snow from the other properties onto his stretch of sidewalk. If the bobcat got to it before he did, it would become a packed-down layer of snow that would be needlessly difficult to clear.
The current standard in Kitchener is bare concrete. Some property owner's achieve this, some are happy to leave a layer of packed snow that makes walking slower at best, and some do nothing. In the latter two cases, city staff could enforce and demand bare concrete. If city staff were themselves clearing the snow, the standard would likely be less, and would often fail to be met.