Month: December 2018

A fascinating article by Brent Toderian in the design magazine Fast Company discusses five steps to making better cities. Step 4 is “doing the right things badly.” I’d say that’s where we are now with sidewalk snow clearing in St. John’s. We are doing it, at least more than we used to, but it’s really hard to stay positive when it’s done so slowly and so badly. It’s even more frustrating when you see money spent on other things that make far less (if any) difference in the quality of life in the city.

The sign in the photo above was posted on our street the night before last. No problem at all to drive or park on the street but a crew was sent out to remove the last few scraps of snow. Meanwhile, so many people are prisoners in their own homes because they don’t have access to sidewalks and are (rightly) afraid to walk in traffic. Even worse to know that those people are often seniors, parents on their own with young children or people living with disabilities and that they can’t get out even to get groceries or basic health care, let alone to see their friends and enjoy this beautiful city.

Yes, the city really is doing a better job than it did at clearing sidewalks but it’s still doing far too few and very poorly. That same day I walked along Empire Avenue — a very busy street with a lot of pedestrians — and there were still no sidewalks, ten days after the last snowstorm.

I also walked around a large block (Bonaventure, Merrymeeting, Newtown and Mayor). The sidewalks there had all been cleared but they still weren’t usable by anybody with a stroller or a mobility aid.

The sections that are still blocked in were left that way because the sidewalk plow couldn’t get past the telephone poles. But, for the huge benefit this would be for so many people, couldn’t a crew do those sections with shovels? They did a staircase at the top of my street that way, but that staircase leading to a tiny one way residential street is much less important than pedestrian access on major streets like the ones in these photos. To end this post with a view of what can be (and is!) done by a couple of people with shovels, here’s the staircase:

 

Perambulator is a performance art project by British walking artist, Clare Qualmann. The project explores peoples’ experiences getting around with strollers, or prams as they’re called in England. According to her artist’s statement, “the project invited other pram users (predominantly mothers) to walk together exploring and highlighting the everyday awkwardness of pram use in the city.” As they walked, they encountered obstacles such as curbs that were too high, cars parked on the sidewalk, and barriers intended to keep mopeds and dirt bikes off walking trails but also making it very difficult for people with strollers. Here in St. John’s in winter, multiply this “everyday awkwardness” exponentially. The photo above is my daughter-in-law with my grandson. She agreed to pose with him but in reality they rarely dare to go out walking in winter because it’s so dangerous.

Not long after I moved to St. John’s, 28 years ago, I went to see satirical singer-songwriter, Nancy White, in concert at the Arts and Culture Centre. I still remember vividly my reaction to her song “Stroller Ladies” about pushing a stroller around Toronto, where residents are legally required to shovel their own sidewalks but some don’t. She fantasizes about what she would do if she were the judge doling out penalties for not shovelling: she would condemn offenders to be “sent to live in Moncton where you’ll soon regret your crime, you’ll be caring for twin babies… there’ll be no sidewalks shovelled…” Well, I actually did have twin babies in Moncton and I wanted to stand up and yell, “In Moncton, the City clears the sidewalks!!”

Writing the above made me start wondering whether I was remembering Moncton through rose coloured glasses so I looked online and found a map showing the sidewalks they clear, colour coded for levels of priority. Have a look. In downtown Moncton, they clear every single sidewalk except for a few dead ends on the outer edges.

Compare that with the map showing downtown St. John’s sidewalks to be cleared. (I won’t even go into whether they actually are cleared. I’ll save that for another post.)

 

It’s so frustrating when you reach the end of a block and discover you can’t get out to cross the street because the intersection hasn’t been maintained properly or the street plows or property owners have dumped snow there. It’s one reason you see pedestrians on the street even when the sidewalk has been cleared. They’re tired of retracing their steps when they can’t get out further down so they just don’t bother with the sidewalk if they can’t see it’s clear right to the end. I’ve often done that myself. This photo shows how to do it right: note two way access to the intersection and shovelled area near the walk sign so people can reach the crossing button. Also, the clearing is wide enough to accommodate strollers and mobility aids, I believe. It’s on Westerland Road across from the Aquarena so I’m not sure if it was done by a MUN plow or by the City. Either way, it’s a model for how to do it right!

 

The first major winter storm was December 6. I went out on the 7th to see how St. John’s is living up to its commitment to be a “city for all seasons”, “support year round active transportation”, and “promote active and healthy living.” I live downtown, which is a priority area for sidewalk snow clearing, and at first it looked pretty good:

The sidewalk on Queen’s Rd. was perfect. Just a little further on, however, there were two problems:

First problem:  The street plows push the snow back onto the sidewalk, which means pedestrians have to walk right where that truck is. Bad enough for a walker but what about someone using a wheelchair or pushing a child in a stroller? (Later on, I went out in my car and saw a man pulling two small children on a toboggan along Empire Avenue, where there was no sidewalk at all.)

Second problem: people parking on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are so frequently unusable that drivers assume they won’t be used and feel free to park there. Why wouldn’t they when the City itself uses them as a dumping ground for snow?