The city’s addition of three sidewalk plow operators to their operations will continue for at least one more winter season.
The operations committee of city council unanimously supported extending the winter sidewalk maintenance pilot project by a season, during Monday’s meeting.
With reduced snowfall during the 2023/24 winter season, city Linear Infrastructure Service director Joe Rocca said the city was unable to determine the pilot program’s effectiveness.
Hopefully, he said, another season will help them better quantify it to help city council decide whether to make it permanent from the 2025/26 season onward.
The winter sidewalk maintenance pilot project was approved by city council in October 2023, and includes hiring three sidewalk plow operators in addition to their regular complement of 21. They have been mandated with clearing sidewalks continually, and have been following existing crews after snow events to plow and sand any sidewalk routes left unfinished, resolving such issues as snow blocking sidewalks.
This past winter season, Rocca reported a 41-per-cent reduction in calls from residents regarding sidewalks. However, a 48-per-cent reduction in calls related to roads, for which service levels were unchanged, calls to question the relevance of last season’s results.
It’s more likely a 30-per-cent reduction in snowfall during the 2023/24 winter season was at play.
The season, he said, “was not typical and made it difficult to determine the effectiveness of the pilot.”
At a budgeted cost of $285,000, city council agreed to extend the program for another winter season to allow for a more thorough evaluation of its merits and pitfalls.
Although there was less snowfall last season, Rocca clarified to city council members that work crews remained busy working on other things, including additional pothole patching efforts.
“One of the challenges we had this winter was, without a snowpack on our local roads, many were exposed and we were on those local roads having to patch more frequently than we would in a typical season,” he said.
“While they weren't doing winter activities the entire period of time, they were busy staff and putting in work toward some of the summer activities we have to do.”
Although the city was uncertain as to the pilot program’s effectiveness, members of the local advocacy group, Greater Sudbury Safer Sidewalks, have already expressed eagerness for it to become permanent, but also recommended a second season for the pilot project to make sure.
In a media release issued last month, they noted that sidewalk conditions had improved.
“I just want to take a moment to say this year the conditions of the sidewalks have been the best I’ve ever seen in Sudbury,” user Vanessa Mariga shared in her response to a survey.
“York and Paris streets in particular, are often impassable once we get a thaw and a freeze. This year they’ve been mostly clear.”
In addition to urging the city to extend the pilot project by another winter season, the advocates offered a list of recommendations to improve service even further, such as clearing slush away before it freezes and aiming for bare pavement or snow clearing to 2 cm to accommodate mobility devices such as wheelchairs.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.