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Exciting News!
After multiple delegations, including a very powerful one by GRAAC sidewalk clearing pilots passed, including amendments for fully city clearing of 40 km as well as contracted clearing of 8cm snow events of 40 km of sidewalks.
Basically, the same as proposed last year, passed this year.
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Congratulations to those that engaged, for your part in helping to change the minds of the council. Clearly, I have a different viewpoint but I do respect the decision and the democratic process.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong (about achievable service levels) but the data should flush this out. Though occasionally terse, I did appreciate the discussion here... see you again in a year!
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(05-28-2019, 12:38 AM)the_councillor Wrote: Congratulations to those that engaged, for your part in helping to change the minds of the council. Clearly, I have a different viewpoint but I do respect the decision and the democratic process.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong (about achievable service levels) but the data should flush this out. Though occasionally terse, I did appreciate the discussion here... see you again in a year!
I genuinely appreciate you engaging with people here. It's too easy to jump to the conclusion that politicians who disagree with you are acting in bad faith, and I think that's evidently not the case for you.
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(05-27-2019, 10:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Exciting News!
After multiple delegations, including a very powerful one by GRAAC sidewalk clearing pilots passed, including amendments for fully city clearing of 40 km as well as contracted clearing of 8cm snow events of 40 km of sidewalks.
Basically, the same as proposed last year, passed this year.
Great news! My thanks to you and the others who took time out of their lives, taking time from work and other commitments to present.
I hope that staff are rigid in their data collection and make sure they are tracking the two pilots in the same way as they are the status quo. I'll be curious to see what works best. This is the only way to find out.
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(05-28-2019, 12:38 AM)the_councillor Wrote: Congratulations to those that engaged, for your part in helping to change the minds of the council. Clearly, I have a different viewpoint but I do respect the decision and the democratic process.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong (about achievable service levels) but the data should flush this out. Though occasionally terse, I did appreciate the discussion here... see you again in a year!
Since you saw fit to ask myself, and almost every other delegate whether we would respect the results of a statistically significant survey residents' opinions in another municipality which does clear sidewalks. Now that the pilot is approved, maybe I can ask you a question here:
Would you respect the results of an objective evaluation of the clarity of sidewalks under city clearing policy vs. bylaw (pro-active or not) enforced property owner clearing. I.e., we already know that bylaw finds 20% of properties uncleared, but we have no actual measured data for city cleared sidewalks. I do hope the pilot will gather this data. So what percentage of sidewalks would need to be clear under city clearing for you to support it, or would that data not be convincing?
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It's almost that time of year again, I guess. The City of Kitchener has launched a new winter sidewalk maintenance survey: https://www.engagewr.ca/winter-sidewalks...0#tool_tab
This one has solely to do with the "bare pavement" requirement. Which wasn't the requirement last winter at all. Who knows.
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10-17-2019, 01:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-17-2019, 01:10 PM by Chris.)
(09-16-2019, 10:17 AM)MidTowner Wrote: It's almost that time of year again, I guess. The City of Kitchener has launched a new winter sidewalk maintenance survey: https://www.engagewr.ca/winter-sidewalks...0#tool_tab
This one has solely to do with the "bare pavement" requirement. Which wasn't the requirement last winter at all. Who knows.
Here is an article discussing the survey results and the suggested bylaw changes for this year.
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/964...staff-say/
TL: DR (two lines from the article I found interesting)
The city ran an online survey on the issue in September and 59 per cent of the 243 respondents said the city should ditch the bare pavement rule.
The city is tightening the bylaw, though, to make it clear residents are responsible for clearing the walk not just after a snowfall but whenever the weather makes things tough for a pedestrian.
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It's good that they are keeping the bare pavement standard, for the reasons in the report: anything else would be too subjective and open to interpretation. Last winter, we paid bylaw officers to walk around guessing whether a sidewalk was passable for someone with a mobility device, when they had never used one. Then we paid bylaw supervisors to argue with citizens like me about what criteria they might be dreaming up to make that guess.
More importantly than that, the report recommends adding the openings of sidewalks onto roadways. Nobody was responsible for this part of the sidewalk in the past, and the best the city could offer was that "most" property owners on corner lots were probably clearing them. Making sure people can cross the street is a good thing.
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This is great news, although I really don't expect it to have any effect on the actual standard of sidewalks in the winter. But hopefully, it will increasingly show the impracticality of bylaw enforcement.
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That's worth hoping for. At some point, presumably, there won't be any more fiddling left to do and the City will have to admit it should just maintain its own infrastructure.
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Last winter, some homeowners were complaining that they were getting bylaw infractions for having a thin layer of snow on the sidewalk. In my neighbourhood there were homes with 2 or 3 inches of ice on the sidewalk that nothing was done about.
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(10-18-2019, 11:27 AM)Acitta Wrote: Last winter, some homeowners were complaining that they were getting bylaw infractions for having a thin layer of snow on the sidewalk. In my neighbourhood there were homes with 2 or 3 inches of ice on the sidewalk that nothing was done about.
This was true in most of the city.
The sidewalk on Weber St. across Victoria from the train station was blocked with 3-10 inches of ice and snow for 100% of the winter, and nothing was done about it. This single sidewalk proves that bylaw enforcement is incapable of clearing one of the most important and simultaneously most obviously blocked sidewalks in the city. It could not fail more completely than that.
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(10-18-2019, 02:26 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This was true in most of the city.
The sidewalk on Weber St. across Victoria from the train station was blocked with 3-10 inches of ice and snow for 100% of the winter, and nothing was done about it. This single sidewalk proves that bylaw enforcement is incapable of clearing one of the most important and simultaneously most obviously blocked sidewalks in the city. It could not fail more completely than that. I remember that. I think that I reported it once on Pingstreet.
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Let's see what they do about reporting/enforcement this winter. If not enforcement, then I would like to at least have better reporting capability.
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I saw a lady pushing a stroller in the snow-filled bike lane on Erbsville today because the sidewalk was completely impassable. Incredibly dangerous given the road conditions, but equally ridiculous she even had to do it in the first place. And that's city-cleared sidewalks that are typically maintained pretty well.
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