Winter Walking and Cycling

[MidTowner]

I just walked from say Bridgeport and King to 1 Victoria this morning, mostly along Moore. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how passable the sidewalks were. Of course I have no mobility impairments. It's notable that there is no sidewalk outside the cemetery.

Iron Horse and Spur Line have been pretty well cleared this year.

The trail between Seagram and University is not great.  There is a bit on Victoria near Margaret which is completely unplowed.

As always, getting into the sidewalk from the street can be a bit of an issue because of the snowbanks but that is a problem everywhere.

I went out for a long walk less than 24 hours after the big snowfall Wednesday, and found the sidewalks pretty reasonable. The big issue was that probably 50% of crosswalks had a 3-4 foot tall snowbank and no cutout to get through. And a lot of impatient drivers who don't want to wait for you to climb over them.

Those big windrows blocking the sidewalk means that all of those good neighbours who are clearing their sidewalks are kind of wasting their time: where people have not cleared the windrows at the corners, anyone who can not climb over them are forced to walk in the streets.

It's pretty difficult to clear those piles that the plow leaves after a big snowfall like we had yesterday. The system we're using doesn't work for big snowfalls, though it also hasn't worked in recent years when we haven't received much snow at all.

I've been really impressed with how well and quickly the Spur Line has been cleared this year. But we're not getting full effect of that investment when the rest of the network is unusable for such long periods.