Walking in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

Here's some data. I spent a week in two towns with municipal sidewalk clearing. Despite walking about 50 kms, through multiple storms, and there were some mediocre sidewalks to be sure, there was only one impassable sidewalk and that was due to having a car parked on it.

Which towns? It would be nice to get some real data on the sidewalk clearing costs.

I was in the town of St. Mary's where I never saw a sidewalk plow, but sidewalks were, cleared, albeit, some poorly.  Most trails, and newer sidewalks were plowed to the pavement, but some sidewalks which are in poor physical condition (many uneven edges), have 2-3 cm of slushy snow (or hardpack snow depending on the temperature) on them, which while less than pleasant is still very passable.  I saw little damage to sod.  Their website has detailed information on when plowing is done.

http://www.townofstmarys.com/en/living-h...owing.aspx

The other was Picton, ON, which is really just an unincorporated community in the single-tier municipality of Prince Edward County (thanks Mike Harris).  Their website was almost impossible to find (thecounty.ca sounds like a tourist site), and provides little details on snow removal except that they do it.

http://www.thecounty.ca/county-residents...trictions/

I did see their sidewalk plow, it is just a small john deer tractor, not a modern sidewalk plow as larger cities might have.  It does minimal salting, but the biggest problem is Picton's sidewalks are very poor in general, so there are some places where the plow cannot even fit down the sidewalk, and the plow will go around obstacles like poles and such.  It does however clear a path through this detour, and it's usually paved.  Places where sidewalks are in good condition were plowed very clear.  There was a fair bit of sod damage.

Generally, I also found that sidewalks were occasionally icy, this is due to runoff of snow during warm days freezing at night.  I think this affects all types of cleared sidewalks, but I saw minimal salting or sanding done.

In all cases, I argue sidewalks I encountered were far more passable than those in Kitchener.  Further, sidewalk maintenance seems to impact clearing quite a bit.  This is both a bad thing, if your sidewalks are bad, a good thing, if (like I think most are here) if your sidewalks are good, and yet another reason for keeping sidewalks in good condition.