Walking in Waterloo Region

[ookpik]

Something I've noticed this year in Uptown Waterloo is that on occasion the snow plow ends up pushing new snow up and over an existing snow bank so that it spills onto the adjacent sidewalk. This is equivalent to leaving windrows across driveways, and doubly frustrating to homeowners who diligently try to keep both their driveways and sidewalks clear of snow. What's puzzling is why is this happening this year. I don't recall seeing this in past years when, like last year, we got far more snow.

[clasher]

In my neighbourhood near downtown Kitchener they came in last year with a giant snowblower and a crew that took away all the snow on the boulevards leaving just a couple of inches of hardpack behind, it was nice to be able to park on the road and have a car pass that parked vehicle. I'm guessing that it's terribly expensive to have this done so they put it off hoping for a melt to ease the situation.

[ookpik]

Mayor Dave's response is disappointing: 

Thanks for your input. Sidewalk clearing is regularly considered, and most recently in 2008 or so.  The costs are noticeably different than what a citizen guessed in the newspaper, and based on previous surveys, the desire from citizens for this service was relatively low.  And the timeliness expectation is quite high (‘by sunrise’).
We definitely will keep this in mind for the future and I do expect that one day, it will be a reality. 

I explicitly asked for the cost number. Perhaps "noticeably different" is close enough to the citizen's guess that the city doesn't want to tell us lest it drive up the demand.
Repeat after me Dave, "Nobody clears snow like The Bad Boy. Nooooo--body!"

[BuildingScout]

Mayor Dave's response is disappointing: 

Thanks for your input. Sidewalk clearing is regularly considered, and most recently in 2008 or so.  The costs are noticeably different than what a citizen guessed in the newspaper, and based on previous surveys, the desire from citizens for this service was relatively low.  And the timeliness expectation is quite high (‘by sunrise’).
We definitely will keep this in mind for the future and I do expect that one day, it will be a reality. 

I explicitly asked for the cost number. Perhaps "noticeably different" is close enough to the citizen's guess that the city doesn't want to tell us lest it drive up the demand.
Repeat after me Dave, "Nobody clears snow like The Bad Boy. Nooooo--body!"

Funny that he describes the $7-10 figure given by the City of Winnipeg as a "guess". Many other cities clear their sidewalks and do not report it as a heavy burden either.

I've done the math in the past: called a bobcat rental, computed fuel and wage costs, got average plowing speeds, etc. Here's the main outline: number of snow events a year on average: 62.2 days per year. A house needs to be plowed three times each of those days (overestimate), it takes 10 seconds to clear an average house (also an overestimate). The rental cost of a bobcat can be found on line and comes to about $5 per household (a city will likely get a better rate by renting for 6 months several units) wages at $5-15 and fuel costs at another $5 per household for a final tally of $15-25.

Compare that figure to your personal cost or the $200 charged by commercial snow plowing services.

[ookpik]

Funny that he describes the $7-10 figure given by the City of Winnipeg as a "guess". Many other cities clear their sidewalks and do not report it as a heavy burden either...

I followed up my original e-mail by asking Dave again to share his numbers with the public. After all if he knows the numbers are different from the newspaper article then presumably he has numbers of his own. His response, "The info that I heard about is from two terms of council so it would have been public back then."

Anyone know how to access and search council minutes from the past 2 or 3 terms of council?

I must say that Dave's response doesn't give me much confidence in his commitment to openness and transparency in government. It also makes me skeptical about his Open City Hall initiative.

[BuildingScout]

Mayor Dave's response is disappointing: 

Thanks for your input. Sidewalk clearing is regularly considered, and most recently in 2008 or so.  The costs are noticeably different than what a citizen guessed in the newspaper, and based on previous surveys, the desire from citizens for this service was relatively low.  And the timeliness expectation is quite high (‘by sunrise’).
We definitely will keep this in mind for the future and I do expect that one day, it will be a reality. 

I explicitly asked for the cost number. Perhaps "noticeably different" is close enough to the citizen's guess that the city doesn't want to tell us lest it drive up the demand.

Guess what folks? I got my hands on a City of Waterloo study from a few years back and the numbers are  close to those indicated in the newspaper column. It would cost $1.2M to clear all the sidewalks in the City of Waterloo. There are 42K households in the City, cost per household: $28 a year.

One must add that the study falls on the high side. For example they are budgeting for the purchase of expensive snow plowing equipment ($4.5M) which would amount to a rather large fleet of expensive plows. Several similar sized cities report than less than 10 vehicles are necessary.

[nms]

If you can't shovel it, skate it.  The BBC reports that there is a proposal to turn a multi-use trail in Edmonton into a ice trail during the colder months.

[Spokes]

Unfortunately it is idiots like you that think that it is perfectly fine to shovel snow back onto the road creating an extremely dangerous driving condition where an otherwise clear road suddenly becomes clogged by snow. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

Feel free to attack a person's idea, but NOT the person.

[ookpik]

Barry gets it: Mayor wants Kitchener to revisit sidewalk shovelling policy 

Vrbanovic introduced a motion this week, which was unanimously supported by council, asking for a review of how the sidewalk clearing policy is enforced, and for consultation with the community about whether the policy should be changed. He's also asked for an update on which other cities plow sidewalks and what it might cost Kitchener to do so...

The mayor admits that in many cases, the city itself, as Purvis unhappily points out, hasn't met its own standard...

Vrbanovic has also staff to revisit how much it would cost to have city staff clear Kitchener's 1,000 or so kilometres of sidewalk, something that London, Ont., Guelph, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Fredericton, Montreal and Quebec City do. Toronto does it, except in downtown areas where it's hard for plows to get through...

The city looked at the feasibility of clearing sidewalks a few years ago, Vrbanovic said, and estimated it would cost $4 to $5 million a winter to have city staff do the job.

Guelph clears 660 kilometres of sidewalks but gives itself up to five days to clear them after a big storm. It cost about $900 per kilometre in 2014 to carry out the job, a cost that would work out to about $1 million in Kitchener. Toronto spends about 20 per cent of its snow removal budget, or $17 million, to plow 7,000 kilometres of sidewalk, which works out to $2,500 per kilometre.

Winnipeg spent about $2.2 million in 2008 to clear a cumulative total of 36,500 kilometres of sidewalk. Fredericton doesn't separate out the costs of clearing sidewalks, but an operations official there guessed it might cost $600,000 to $700,000 to clear its 220 kilometres of walks.

Et tu, Dave?

BTW the numbers above are consistent with BuildingScout's Waterloo estimates. So the cost of city-wide clearing is quite reasonable. What's lacking is the political spine to get the job done. 

P.S. Winnipeg's population is 700,000. I don't know how the annual snowfall amounts compare.


P. 

[schooner77]

Perhaps it should have been phrased with a little more care, but the action to shovel snow back into the street is dangerous and careless.

[Markster]

P.S. Winnipeg's population is 700,000. I don't know how the annual snowfall amounts compare.

Annual Averages
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Ca...verage.php

Winnipeg:
53 days with snowfall greater than 0.2cm
114 cm of snowfall total

KW:
62 days with snowfall greater than 0.2cm
160 cm of snowfall total

Ottawa:
52 days with snowfall greater than 0.2cm
175 cm of snowfall total

London:
60 days with snowfall greater than 0.2cm
194 cm of snowfall total

[Viewfromthe42]

So our numbers should be closer to London's than Ottawa's or Winnipeg's, given that it is not so much total snowfall that matters, but days with (minimum required snowfall for plow service) that counts.

[ookpik]

BTW now would be an excellent time to open up discussion of city wide snow removal as Vrbanovic has proposed, contrary to Jaworsky's position.
1. We've had [note my implicit hope that it's soon to be in the past ] a particularly harsh winter. Even those dedicated to keeping their sidewalks clear have had to contend with extreme cold and windchill. People are now more open to accepting the small annual cost of avoiding this chore than they will be this summer or next fall.
2. The LRT is coming. Clear, navigable sidewalks within a few hundred metres of stops make using the LRT (and public transit in general) more palatable to those who otherwise wouldn't use it. So city wide snow removal could be sold as a further encouragement of public transit. So would timely clearing of snow from the curbs at bus stops.

[BuildingScout]

BTW now would be an excellent time to open up discussion of city wide snow removal as Vrbanovic has proposed, contrary to Jaworsky's position.

I think the difference in positions is remarkable: Vrbanovic said "we'll restudy the issue", Jaworski said "there's an old study which has figures higher than those reported by other cities, so case closed".

[Pheidippides]

I recognize that the cities currently only take responsibility for some sidewalks to clear, but can anyone explain to me why do sidewalk/trail plows go from one of "their" areas of responsibility to another with their blade up? Would it really add that much time and fuel to keep the clearing the way between areas of responsibility?


Here's a suggestion, why don't we mobilize the tech-talent in this town, particularly the rover companies like Clearpath, and develop an autonomous sidewalk snow plow. I mean they even have the perfect name for a sidewalk/trail plow, Clearpath. Autonomous vacuum's have been around for ages, self-driving cars are on their way, this can't be too hard to make work, right? Isn't one of the highest cost of snow removal labour? Maybe throw in some drones to supervise the situation.