Current sidewalk snow clearing review

Information about our sidewalk snow clearing practices can also be found on the City of Waterloo website.

In our current shared model of sidewalk snow clearing responsibility:

• property owners clear sidewalks at private properties (residential, business/commercial, industrial, etc.)
• the city clears sidewalks at public properties, like parks, creek corridors, trails, walkways, and city buildings and facilities

You can look up properties on our snow clearing responsibility map.

In the City of Waterloo, there are 754 kms of sidewalks, pathways, walkways and multi-use trails. City staff maintain 171 kms, or 23% as of this past winter. Property owners are responsible for 66%, and the remaining 11% are city-owned park trails and walkways that are not maintained through the winter (and have signs posted accordingly). The estimated annual cost of providing this existing service is about $700,000 per year, with existing staff and equipment. The city currently has seven sidewalk plows ("trackless units") in our fleet. At today's rates, a municipal sidewalk plow costs an estimated $200,000. As part of our review, operations staff are looking at other potential equipment options as well. We are also considering the environmental impacts of sidewalk snow clearing operations and methods, in terms of greenhouse gas generation, and increased salt use.

One of the challenges city crews and residents face (a main point identified by the community) is the issue of curb-faced sidewalks, where there is no snow storage space (little or no boulevard) between the road and sidewalk. Snow from the road gets pushed to the sidewalk, and snow from the sidewalk gets pushed back onto the road. There are approximately 34 kms of curb-faced sidewalks in the city; and only 4 km are cleared by the city in our current model. In order to solve the cycle of pushing snow back and forth between sidewalks and roads when there is no storage space, ideally the snow in these areas should be hauled away, an other option currently under review.

While we are not looking at city-wide sidewalk snow clearing at this time, we are looking at possible new sidewalk routes to support access to public transit and other priority destinations, as well as how we can ensure that crossings are accessible by clearing cutouts at intersections and crosswalks in a priority sequence.

Enforcement

Per the snow removal bylaw, property owners must clear their sidewalks (to the full width) within 24 hours after the end of a snow fall or ice build up. If a sidewalk is not cleared 24 hours after snowfall, our municipal enforcement (bylaw) team will issue a notice, requiring the sidewalk to be cleared within the next 24 hours. After this time, it will be cleared by a contractor and billed back to the owner on their property taxes. Some enforcement is proactive, the majority is on a reported basis.