When the snow falls next winter, city residents may have to grab their shovels and get out on the pavement before 11 a.m., just like their business-owning counterparts.
Council will look at changing the city’s traffic bylaw to require everyone to keep their sidewalks clear Monday to Saturday, with a reprieve on Sundays and statutory holidays.
Other proposed bylaw changes include prohibiting drivers from parking in front of stairs, and enshrining in law the city snow removal team’s annual request that drivers to park on odd or even sides of the street depending on the day of the week.
Councillor Marg Stacey says the restriction on blocking stairs with vehicles is an obvious move.
“We do it for driveways, why aren’t we doing it for stairs?” she asked council. “It makes no sense not to.”But the other bylaw tweaks raised councillor Bob Adams’ ire.
Adams questioned how the odd/even parking scheme would be enforced after a midnight snowfall, adding “what are you going to do? Give the guy a ticket who’s parked on the wrong side of the street at 2 a.m.?”
City manager Kevin Cormack said the actual bylaw will have a definition of “day” that rules out late-night parking tickets, but Adams also took issue with the extra responsibility being piled on homeowners.
“This is putting a lot of pressure on people with sidewalks,” he said. “The city already clears a very good pathway for people to walk and they clear it and sand it.”
Councillor Donna Macdonald, who requested the snow clearing requirement along with councillor Kim Charlesworth, said she’s not asking homeowners to shovel “to be mean. We’re doing this to provide a service in a cost-effective way, and we need our citizens to cooperate with that.”
A formal bylaw amendment will be back to council for approval at a later date.