Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

City of Waterloo handed out more than 350 fines for snow clearing concerns

According to data collected by the city, bylaw officers received over 2,122 complaints about sidewalk clearing. Although that number is similar to the winter of 2024/2025, it is a 240 per cent increase compared to 2023/2024.


Bylaw officers gave out 799 orders related to snow clearing, performed 209 clean-ups and handed out 353 fines.

Given that in one year, I submitted about 200 complaints in Kitchener, but 0 in Waterloo because their complaint line never answered once in all the times I tried, then 2000 complaints seems both high and low.

Honestly though, this report is pretty weak. It gives zero indication as to how the sidewalk clearing is performing, only that "the complaints were the same as last year, and more than the year before". I'm going to guess the 240% increase isn't even about complaints, but about them actually manning the damn phone. 

Also: “In the past we typically saw people either yelling at drivers or throwing shovels at the trucks, but it seems to be escalating to the point where people are trying to enter the vehicles and get to the drivers and attack them. So, we’ve been looking at mitigating measures to deter that kind of behaviour through potentially the use of forward-facing camera technology,” Henderson said.

This is insane. How about we treat people who attack snowplow drivers with the same disdain that many in our community (even our community here) treat the unhoused population and go and bulldoze their houses? Or maybe, we can just charge them with the crimes they're committing. I think cameras and such are probably unnecessary for that (although perfectly valid to install) given that these people are emotional (and unhinged) enough to engage in criminal behaviour right outside their house.