Well, winter is back, and although Waterloo Region has only received about six inches of snow over the last few days, the sidewalks are generally terrible. Even very close to downtown, there are plenty of property owners who are not clearing their sidewalks as required.
It’s pretty obvious that requiring property owners to clear their own sidewalks is not working. Walking down a street, a quarter of property owners may have their sidewalk completely immaculate, but if the same proportion have done little or no clearing in days (and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration), it’s almost pointless since people who struggle in these conditions will have to stay home. So few people seem to realize that they have to clear the sidewalk windrows, and it’s not hard to imagine this being extremely dangerous for someone on a scooter or pushing a stroller or otherwise encumbered.
Maybe someone can explain to me if anyone is really afoul of the bylaw at all. It hasn’t stopped snowing for a constant 24 hour period since Sunday: if I understand correctly, sidewalks don’t need to be cleared until the snow stops, and stays stopped, for a full day. So, on a week like this (which can’t exactly be considered abnormal for this region), we should just expect many sidewalks to be practically impassable.
(01-14-2016, 12:24 PM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ]Well, winter is back, and although Waterloo Region has only received about six inches of snow over the last few days, the sidewalks are generally terrible. Even very close to downtown, there are plenty of property owners who are not clearing their sidewalks as required...
Tell it to the mayors. They're the ones who are equivocating, posturing, delaying and using every other tactic in the politician's handbook to evade this issue. I've lobbied DaveJ. That was a total waste of time. And BarryV, based on what he's told the media, is no better. But hey, they're all in favour of more people using public transit, especially the LRT, in the winter.
One example: There's a property at William and Allen on the southwest corner. I can't tell if it's abandoned or not but it's certainly not been maintained. Its sidewalks have never been cleared during any of the past many winters. What's with that? Do I have to Pingstreet it on a daily basis?
(01-14-2016, 12:48 PM)ookpik Wrote: [ -> ]Tell it to the mayors...
I've written my elected officials. My councillor is apparently on-board with the City of Kitchener taking sidewalk clearing on- so that sidewalks are cleared- and as you say, the mayor supposedly is. In the interim, I don't know what to do. I'm expecting that (most) people want to do the right thing. I guess that only a small proportion would be physically or otherwise unable to clear their sidewalks. The amount of contravention of this bylaw wouldn't be tolerated for many others.
(01-14-2016, 12:48 PM)ookpik Wrote: [ -> ]One example: There's a property at William and Allen on the southwest corner. I can't tell if it's abandoned or not but it's certainly not been maintained. Its sidewalks have never been cleared during any of the past many winters. What's with that? Do I have to Pingstreet it on a daily basis?
There are a lot of examples I can think of, which are either never cleared, or cleared so infrequently that they are a reliable impediment to just getting around. I don't know what to do- is contacting the municipality about every property one encounters whose sidewalk is not cleared realistic? That could potentially be dozens of addresses in a week like this; that doesn't sound like something that should be necessary or desirable to anyone.
I've emailed my Councillor about it a few times and he's never returned a single one of my emails. The undeveloped lot on David street doesn't seem to shovel their tiny stretch of sidewalk while Drewlo and Kitchener Housing take care of the rest of that side of the street and the city plows the park-facing sidewalk. The rest of the street can be hit or miss but it's pretty highly walked in the winter and it's disgusting that we rely on the kindness of property owners to do the work. My own landlord only comes by to shovel the sidewalk and doesn't bother with the rest of our property. I dunno if anyone really cares.
(01-14-2016, 12:48 PM)ookpik Wrote: [ -> ]Do I have to Pingstreet it on a daily basis?
No, you don't have to Pingstreet it, because Pingstreet doesn't let you report unplowed sidewalks!
The twice or so that I awkwardly used it to report this, they sent me an email saying "don't do that anymore" and gave me the phone number for bylaw enforcement.
My own annoyance is the semi-derelict house/office at Queen & Joseph. Last year, my complaints were the only two times the sidewalk was shoveled all winter.
(01-14-2016, 01:21 PM)Markster Wrote: [ -> ]No, you don't have to Pingstreet it, because Pingstreet doesn't let you report unplowed sidewalks!
Thanks. I'd just recently heard about Pingstreet and was planning to use it to inundate city hall with reports of uncleared sidewalks. Thanks for saving me from another exercise in frustration.
Quote:My own annoyance is the semi-derelict house/office at Queen & Joseph. Last year, my complaints were the only two times the sidewalk was shoveled all winter.
In my experience the owners of derelict properties, construction sites and vacant lots somehow seem to get the impression that they're exempt from the snow clearing bylaw until and only if someone reports them. Second place goes to absentee landlords of rental properties, especially single family houses and n-plexes, who leave the responsibility to their tenants even though it's the property owner who has the ultimate responsibility.
A (distant) third place to home owners who go away for a week or three in the winter. I have a small amount of sympathy for them because they can't hire a snow-clearing company for such short periods. But even they now have options, e.g.
TouchPlow offers on-demand snow clearing.
Fourth are people who have physical disabilities that limit their ability to clear their sidewalks. They have some options too.
But the point is that all of these situations are just arguments in favour of city-wide sidewalk plowing.
If Queen & Joseph isn't officially in the downtown core, it must be essentially adjacent to it. I am surprised that municipal bylaw officers wouldn't proactively enforce in downtown at least.*
An online form would be nice for snow on sidewalks. I find that the people working the phones at City of Kitchener are always very helpful, but I'd imagine the phone call is a disincentive to people.
*I'm assuming that bylaw officers spend a fair bit of time downtown anyway; I could be wrong in this assumption.
I had an issue with a section of sidewalk the City of Waterloo was responsible for (along Laurelwood) not getting plowed last winter. The rest of the sidewalk was immaculate except for their section which was a bumpy, single-file trail. It stayed like that for several weeks until I finally complained to them. In fairness, the problem was corrected promptly after my complaint.
On a bright note, I've been relatively impressed with the clearing of trails this year (particularly the Spurline).
I'm wondering if the Region is secretly trailing ploughing some sidewalks intermittently. I'm out there at 6am every day shovelling mine, and a week or so ago when I went out, the entire sidewalk in both directions as far as I could see was perfect, uniform, down to the concrete clear, as if it was done with a machine. I don't think it was one of my neighbours because I've never seen anyone within a few hundred metres of our house with a snowblower... Although I suppose maybe someone complained further up about a sidewalk not being shovelled and the region came along and did the whole stretch.
(01-14-2016, 02:07 PM)ookpik Wrote: [ -> ]Second place goes to absentee landlords of rental properties, especially single family houses and n-plexes, who leave the responsibility to their tenants even though it's the property owner who has the ultimate responsibility.
Like you say, ultimately it's the property owner who has the responsibility (like with a lot of other things with a property which would typically be the property owner's responsibility if they went sideways, but are typically delegated to the tenant), but I don't think it's improper to leave it to the tenants who actually live there. I can think of a few small multiplexes in my neighbourhood where the landlord obviously has some sort of contract with a snow removal companies, but that doesn't imply that the sidewalks will be cleared within 24 hours, 72 hours, or any length of time after a snowfall. I've had contracts with these companies, and you can get good ones, but they all have snowfall "triggers." If two centimeters of snow is enough to make sidewalks difficult for people on foot, it still might not be enough to get the company to come out and clear.[/quote]
(01-14-2016, 02:07 PM)ookpik Wrote: [ -> ]A (distant) third place to home owners who go away for a week or three in the winter. I have a small amount of sympathy for them because they can't hire a snow-clearing company for such short periods. But even they now have options, e.g. TouchPlow offers on-demand snow clearing.
Most of the smaller companies who offer snow removal service will offer it for a one-month or even two-week contract. There are the issues I mentioned above, though, and a snow-removal company will never provide the same clearing that a diligent homeowner would himself.
My personal biggest beef are the houses where the driveway is obviously cleared religiously, and the sidewalk all but untouched. I guess these people don't walk, and so the sidewalk isn't front of mind for them, but it's infuriating to day after day find their sidewalk snow-and-ice-covered, while their driveway is obviously getting cleared after each snowfall. This isn't an uncommon thing.
A simple knock at their door (or a polite note in their mailbox) might go a long way.
(01-15-2016, 09:29 AM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think it's improper to leave it to the tenants who actually live there...
I think we're in general agreement. But the landlord shouldn't just assume that the tenants will clear the snow any more than they'd assume some tenant will act as building supervisor and leaking faucet repair guy. If they don't want to clear the sidewalks themselves or hire an outside contractor to do the job then they need to find a tenant who is willing to do it. Obviously that tenant will want to be compensated for their effort, perhaps by a reduction in rent. And even so, if the tenant fails to do what they agreed to do, the landlord is still responsible.
Quote:My personal biggest beef are the houses where the driveway is obviously cleared religiously, and the sidewalk all but untouched. I guess these people don't walk, and so the sidewalk isn't front of mind for them, but it's infuriating to day after day find their sidewalk snow-and-ice-covered, while their driveway is obviously getting cleared after each snowfall. This isn't an uncommon thing.
Even worse are businesses that do this. One example from my walk last night is the pharmacy on Park and Wood across from GR Hospital. The walkway from the sidewalk to their front door was cleared of all snow. It looked like someone even salted it. Their parking lot was also clear of snow. And yet the sidewalk in front of their property had never been cleared. So evidently someone is aware of the need to clear snow and has made arrangements to do it for everything
but the sidewalk. This is simply unacceptable.
I just had a thought. The viewpoint of the pedestrians is its their right to clear and safe passage. That got me thinking: The sidewalks are like roads - provided/built by the Municipality (not the home owner) as transportation to the public. So therefore, 100% it should be the responsibility of the local authority to clear it. I don't shovel the road in front of my house (usually!), so this is the same really.
(01-15-2016, 09:51 AM)Canard Wrote: [ -> ]A simple knock at their door (or a polite note in their mailbox) might go a long way.
I've tried a polite note in the past when it seems to be something chronic, and I assume it's a case of simply not thinking of it. That's good advice.
And your logic in your last post is impeccable: it's a public road, and should be maintained the way that public roads are that are meant for cars.