Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

So, they say the survey is statistically valid. But they don't say how many people were surveyed, or by which method. Or give the responses based on the pilot type, or by geographic area. Were they willing to share any of this information at the meeting?

They propose four bylaw officers. How many were there last winter? Do they have any data on how long it takes to respond to snow-clearing bylaw complaints?

The "priority route" option, is this the same service as the "city-led full-service pilot"? It's about 70% of the cost, but it seems like only a small minority of the sidewalks would be covered. What does "Sidewalk Priority Route with less than 50% coverage is not operationally or financially viable" mean?

Yes, I asked them many of those questions.

I asked at another time, the survey was done by a third party company...I'm not about to question their methods, but the questions themselves...weren't ideal.  I asked if they had broken it down by primary mode of the user, they did not, they only asked "do you use sidewalks"...everyone said yes, but that doesn't separate those who actually walk places, vs. those who take their dog out for a pee.  I did not ask if they broke it down by geographic area....there's a good bet you could regenerate the primary mode of the user by looking at geographic area.

Four bylaw officers is exactly what they had last year, they patrolled "the entire city"...so basically they could patrol anywhere that the other pilots were not going on, so they are not proposing any increase in this enforcement.  I'm trying to remember, I think they said that the bylaw officers visited each property they patrolled 3 times over the whole winter.  But I'm not sure how much of the city they hit.

I asked about response times, because this is a big issue, for called in complaints they claim they are able to visit quickly, there was no backlog. For patrolling, they do start after 24 hours...but obviously it takes a long time to do the city. Of course, they also were willing to recognize that the failure to enforce any time during snow (so possibly weeks at a time in our climate) is a weakness.

I didn't ask them much about the priority route, I have no idea why they were so against it....I was more frustrated by the minimization of the results of the successful pilot project.

At the end of the day there is a huge discrepency between what they claim (7% of people recieve notices, and almost all clear their snow after a notice) and the 40% of sidewalks that are not in good condition. They were unable to provide any satisfactory answer to that...claiming that it must just have been different sidewalks.

My theory is that it is a combination of the pathetic QOS on enforcement and the incredibly lax standards. The lax standards exist because council doesn't want to get too many complaints they'd get by issuing notices to 40% or even 20% of the city.

Barring any other developments, I will be going to council as an angry taxpayer and demanding that they not waste my tax dollars on bullshit "enforcement theater"...clearly their bylaw officers are not effective, and if they aren't willing to spend money on something that is effective, they should stop wasting my money on pretending to do something.