I walk to work almost every day, and I don’t think all drivers are dangerous idiots.
Some of them are, though.
Likewise, I don’t think all pedestrians are careless risk-takers.
Again, some are.
Unlike some people on social media, I don’t think the City of St. John’s wants pedestrians dead.
As people complain about this winter’s dangers for walkers, I think about one word: “consistency.”
People who walk to work or school don’t really have a choice; they have to get there. And having a sidewalk cleared inconsistently is almost as bad as not having it cleared at all.
I travel on city-plowed sidewalks for about one-third of my walk to work. It used to be closer to one-half of the time but — inconsistency.
I travel on city sidewalks until I reach the part of Prince Philip Drive where the sidewalk’s plowed by Memorial University. MUN sidewalk plowing is very consistent — yes, there can be icing after freeze-and-thaw events, and yes, like anywhere else, there isn’t cleared sidewalk during storms.
Then, I go through the even-more-consistently-cared-for Health Sciences sidewalks and parking lots, and after that, on secondary streets that don’t even receive sidewalk clearing — but, with low traffic volumes, are safe enough to walk on.
As people complain about this winter’s dangers for walkers, I think about one word: “consistency.”
By far, the most dangerous parts of my walk to work are Thorburn Road, Allandale Road and Strawberrry Marsh Road, all identified as being among the city’s highest-priority sidewalks. (I also used to take part of Prince Philip that was cleared by the city, but the third time I came to an abrupt dead-end — where a sidewalk plow had stopped plowing and backed up out of the sidewalk it was clearing, leaving me to turn around and head back for several blocks — I gave it up as too unreliable.
To be fair, neither the Health Sciences nor MUN has anywhere near the 161 kilometres of sidewalk the city clears.
But the city essentially identifies the vast majority of those 161 km of sidewalks as priority one sidewalks for clearing, and, if everything’s your first priority, the truth is that nothing is.
The city plows in school zones first, and if snow storms are close together, it goes back to square one, starting again with those same school zones.
For roads like Thorburn Road — four lanes wide and with all the street snow going right onto the sidewalk — that means a wide variation in sidewalk snowclearing. The sidewalk might be done two days after a storm. It might be done by sidewalk blower, it might be done by a sidewalk plow, it might be done by a loader with a wing plow — which, with one edge balanced on the curb, creates a delightfully slippery ice ramp right into the street for walkers.
This past week, the big danger is ice. The city didn’t put plows on Thorburn’s sidewalks until well after the slush from the last storm was freezing again, and instead of clearing the sidewalk, built an excellent linear rink.
And sometimes, it’s not done at all. The longest stretch I can remember is five full days between a Sunday snowfall and a Friday afternoon plowing, with snow deep enough to put walkers in the road full time.
A solution?
I think the city should make a real priority system for sidewalks, just like they do for city streets. Commit to clearing a set of trunk sidewalks where there aren’t options — say, along one side of Topsail Road, one side of Prince Philip, one side each of Thorburn, Portugal Cove, Kenmount/Freshwater and Torbay Roads, one side of Elizabeth Avenue, for example.
Make a grid that people can depend on as first priority routes.
You wouldn’t plow the parkway during one blizzard, and then ignore it during the next one, right?
Consistency. And then the walkers can plan and adapt. And be safer.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire publications across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky
