Good snow clearing is worth the cost

Re: “Council cool to snow budget hike,” Feb. 14.

This is not a matter of stretching dollars, it is a grave matter of public safety. From a practical standpoint, it is also an issue of pay now or pay more later.

With every snowfall comes front page news of the huge number of accidents on Calgary streets and highways. Included in these are some lives lost, some life-threatening injuries, and huge payouts and inconvenience by Calgary citizens for vehicle repairs, insurance claims and resulting huge insurance hikes for them.

There are now reports in the Herald of how busy garages are, doing wheel alignments caused by ruts on our streets.

What happens to our handicapped or elderly citizens when they try to cross a major thoroughfare, which is a sheet of ice, and they fall, and an oncoming vehicle can’t stop?

When walking my dog, I feel perfectly safe and secure on the nicely cleaned residential sidewalks. However, as soon as I enter sidewalks fronted on city-owned property, once again, I am putting my health and life at stake with the uncleared walkways.

Such hypocrisy — that I can be fined for not clearing my sidewalks, but the city has “budget issues?” I might have those as well, but I still have to re-organize my finances to ensure I can afford to pay to have my walks cleaned.

Yes, I am in favour of paying a mere one per cent more annually in taxes to prevent all of these issues of public safety from occurring. That would be money well spent. Let’s do it!

Marg McKaig, Calgary

Public walks need to be maintained

Coun. Druh Farrell states that a bylaw offence of not removing snow from your sidewalk should also be subject to a fine.

I would like to suggest that Farrell and the City of Calgary look in their own backyard first. Then they will see that most of the city-owned sidewalks are not maintained at all.

I am one of those citizens who slogs daily along a dangerous, slippery connector footpath and across a park, which ironically had a multimillion-dollar new footpath built across it last year. Despite requests, neither have ever had one flake of snow removed from them.

Thea Connery, Calgary

JIM WELLS Bonnie and Neal Sanch burned a lot of calories earlier this month shovelling the sidewalk in front of their house. Readers note that while homeowners can be fined for not shovelling, walkways on city-owned property are often icy and treacherous.