Drivers and pedestrians, young students and elderly homeowners, everyone’s pissed off about the snow on our streets.
Two snowstorms in one week is apparently all it takes to make HRM completely inaccessible. City sidewalks are filled with more stomped on white powder than a nightclub bathroom. Side streets remain free from any visible asphalt. Even the cleared main streets are reduced to a lane-and-a-quarter thanks to bulging snowbanks. And somehow that all sounds better than the great barf lakes of brown water that will submerge every intersections as soon as temperatures creep up.
John savage Ave. isn’t important enough for sidewalks. In the street I walk. #halifax #dartmouth #winter #ugh pic.twitter.com/z67Fsj72oO
— Kaz (@OriginalKazila) February 6, 2015
Seems to be no priority for high-traffic sidewalks in #Halifax unbelievable this is across fr @ScotiaBankCtr @hfxgov pic.twitter.com/Iqfgj3nUsk
— Chris Marriott (@chrismarriott) February 8, 2015
Streets and sidewalks are cleaned in order of several official priority levels. Priority one are any main arterials, emergency routes, bus corridors and snow routes in hilly terrain. Those are supposed to be clear within 12 hours of the end of snowfall. Priority two streets have medium to low volumes of traffic and are supposed to be passable within 24 hours.
It’s a similar pattern with sidewalks, with the addition of priority two sidewalks along transit routes (supposed to be clear within 18 hours of the end of snowfall). All sidewalks are, in theory, supposed to be clear of snow and ice within 36 hours of a snowstorm’s end.
Those service standards, of course, go out the window with blizzard conditions. With multiple snowfalls, operators return to the highest priority streets even if the lower ones aren’t yet clear.
Maybe we can’t win against winter. Snow seems to have KO’d Halifax as easily as any other sleepy, seaside town. We could probably make some tourism bucks off it, if we tried. Turn those sugar-crusted roads into a quaint selling point for anyone seeking the docile inadequacies of small-town living.
At the very least, city-controlled sidewalk clearing has been something close to failure. Why else would residents be asking councillors for the right to shovel more snow?
The 2013 decision to hire private contractors for city sidewalks already resulted in a 75 percent increase in complaints last winter, with many citing damage to driveways, steps and lawns. Last year, the city shrugged that off as part of the “learning curve.” Training wheels are off now, though, and service still isn’t up to snuff.
Sure, it’s been a rough week for storms. And complaining about snow is takes the gold on the Canadian list of fetishes. No one’s expecting miracles, here. But it’s shocking how effectively a couple snowstorms can shut off the city. Halifax shouldn’t be this impractical to live in.
UPDATE: From HRM: “The municipality recognizes how frustrating the past week has been for commuters, particularly those with mobility issues, and we appreciate residents’ patience as snow removal continues. Additional equipment has been brought in to supplement the four municipal loaders, 40 street plows and 10 sidewalk plows that are currently deployed to haul away the snow.”
Problem areas and sidewalks not meeting service standards will be the focus of clearing operations over the next 12 to 24 hours, says the city’s press release. “Like the streets, the sidewalks will need repeated salting, scraping and warmer temperatures before conditions can improve significantly.”
Crews will be hauling away snow overnight from Spring Garden Road, Dresden Row, Birmingham, Argyle, Grafton, Gottingen and Portland Streets, downtown Dartmouth and Sackville Drive.
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This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2015.
I was in downtown Halifax Saturday afternoon and the sidewalks were abysmal. Having worked retail for many years I know full well, just what a fiscal black hole this time of year can be.
I’d advise businesses in the downtown core to do themselves a big favour and shovel their own sidewalks and storefronts. Don’t depend on the municipality to do it.
Having the dubious privilege of working up in a part of Burnside that possesses both sidewalks and bike lanes, despite seeing little foot traffic and less cyclists, it’s winter as usual. I’ll be walking on the roads until the spring thaw.
personally i think the snow clearing has been fantastic for the conditions. Sackville has been solid i work on the bedford highway all the way in mostly great roads and a great job done.
First World Problems – at least we are not living in a war zone. It COULD BE WORSE. Canadian’s need to lighten up and stop complaining about everything that doesn’t suit them. It is snow :|
you can buy shovels almost anywhere. Go get one and help a neighbour. Clean out infront of your own business. Organize a toboggan run..Anything but this incessant Whining and complaining about the City workers that are rather exhausted right now.
The side walks are inexcusable… However, I think the street plowimg has been great! We live in Canada. We shouldn’t expect bare pavement. I hear people complain that the plow blades are set higher on purpose. Great! If it saves damage to streets and curbs that will end up costing us more money I’m all for it. Get some snow tires, or take the bus, and get over it!
I understand that salt has limited capabilities in very cold temps, but at least put some sand on the streets still covered in rock hard ice (Windmill Rd this morning) the sand will provide some traction at least, and will help soften and break up the ice as cars drive over it. Every year snow removal, and maintaining safe streets gets worse.
One thing I have noted is that fire hydrants are not being excavated, which used to be standard policy in peninsular Halifax. Given the worst of circumstances, a hard-frozen hydrant, buried under dense, hard-frozen snow, could seriously exacerbate a house or business fire situation while crews are occupied trying to get access and get the valves unstuck. I hope this scenario does not play out in the worst way anywhere in Halifax this winter but it might take such a wake up call, for whichever division (311? Fire Dept?) to start digging them out again.
Anything but complaints about snow and ice will be met with a barrage of dislikes on this site.
Sounds like all the people downtown who no longer have to shovel their sidewalks would like that privilege back.
I don’t believe that anybody wants back the “privilege” of shovelling, but if business owners want their sidewalks cleared properly in a timely manner so their winter business doesn’t suffer even more, then depending on the municpality is a fool’s errand.
Shovel yourself or find a street bum prepared to do honest labour and pay him off in petty cash, T!m’s gift cards, or fortifed wine.
“Find a street bum prepared to do honest labour and pay him off in petty cash, T!m’s gift cards, or fortifed wine.”
Ivan, you are an asshole. Congratulations on taking your otherwise reasonable point and flushing it down the toilet.
http://www.halifax.ca/snow/StreetPriorityF… doesn’t do fuck all. Irony?
LMFAO, Erica.
The pleasure was entirely mine. ♥
..and if you can think of a better way to smash capitalism than by reverting to a barter economy, I’d love to hear it.
Hasta La Victoria, Siempre!
heh, heh, heh
I can definitely attest to the abysmal sidewalks as I nearly snapped my ankle on Barrington (one of the “priority” transit sidewalk areas) when my foot slipped off some icey snow into a hole and I went sideways as a result.
I’ve lived in Winnipeg, St John’s, Vancouver (although you can hardly count that for winter I guess) and now Halifax, and I can honestly say that the street and sidewalk cleaning here is the absolute worst of the places I have lived.
Given the amount of machinery to deal with the snow though, we cannot expect any better, and blaming the workers for the conditions isn’t right. It’s not their fault that there isn’t enough of them to do the work, although we CAN blame them when they bury access to side streets, and also thank them when they actually take time to help with that.
All in all though, there needs to be more of them on the roads taking care of this. End of story.
The City and Dept of Hwy say that salt doesn’t work below -10C.
Strangely it works well at -15C and colder in my driveway. I guess the laws of physics work differently in my universe.
Oh, and the Dal Prof on CBC said the same thing last week: salt works up to -20C.
I am not from Hfx, i am just a long term guest. In Toronto the city makes money off absentee landlords who dont clear their walk. Business owners who dont do their part are also fined by city and prospective customers who notice such things. As a kid we made pocket money shovelling out neighbours who didn’t want to do their own homes. There were no thank you’s forthcoming from my father in law when i came visiting and shovelled his long driveway and walk before i rang, I unknowingly “done my (his) evenings excercise”.
This is how Canadians stay in touch with their communities, talkibg to the neighbors as theyre out shovelling their sidewalks etc. Its fresh air and excercise and its as Canadian as flapjacks, chesterfiels and hockey.
Of course you can opt to give the gov more tax money and have them plow the sidewalk like in Montreal, where the plows have been know to actually kill people…