Kitchener’s about-face on clearing sidewalks will be election issue

What a cruel joke that Kitchener has a pedestrian charter that describes all the ways it says it helps people who get around by walking.

Because when push came to shove, pedestrians in this city just got treated like dirt by their elected representatives.

Last week, city councillors got cold feet regarding a pricey pilot project that would explore, and measure the cost of, different ways in which the city might clear its own sidewalks of winter snow and ice.

Currently, property owners next to those sidewalks are expected to keep them clear, even though the sidewalks belong to the city. But it’s not an effective strategy.

Lots of people neglect “their” sidewalks, which become dangerous for some and completely impassable for others.

Sometimes, even when sidewalks are cleared, the streets are plowed and push the icy debris back onto the sidewalks.

There have been plenty of complaints about all this, which led council to consider creating test areas where staff plow sidewalks, or had contractors do it after heavy snowfalls.

This would have shown different ways in which the city could start planning to take ownership of its own sidewalks.

But a week later at the full council meeting, enough of them changed their minds that the original plan got severely watered down.

There will be more enforcement of the snow-shovelling bylaw, for $170,000, and there will be $26,700 for a sidewalk shovelling service to assist 50 seniors and disabled people.

But that’s all that survived of the original plan.

By a vote of 7 to 4 last week, councillors let go of any action that suggested the city would one day be responsible for clearing its own property.

Their action also reduced the proposed cost of the pilot project by three-quarters.

It’s kind of ironic that there’s a pedestrian charter at all, don’t you think?

Why should a person using a walker be trapped indoors, while the city boasts about its commitment to “the right of pedestrians of all ages and abilities to safe, convenient, direct and comfortable walking conditions”?

Why should a parent wheeling a child in a stroller be forced to walk on the road, dodging cars, while the city trumpets its “infrastructure that gives pedestrians safe and convenient passage?”

Why are roads cleared by the city for the convenience of the almighty car, but sidewalks are an afterthought?

However can we expect people to take light rail transit if they can’t even get to the stations?

With a few noble exceptions, Kitchener councillors clearly see people who don’t drive cars as second-class citizens.

If that’s really the case, they should ditch their charter with all its empty promises.

Mayor Berry Vrbanovic, an advocate for clearing sidewalks, said some councillors around the table were concerned about the increased costs of the city taking on the job.

Others thought the goal of cleared sidewalks could be accomplished by having more bylaw enforcement officers who would fine negligent property owners.

And still others don’t have a full appreciation of what uncleared sidewalks mean to a person with reduced mobility.

It’s a human rights issue, no less.

The only bright spot is that municipal elections are less than four months away.

Once people have been led to expect an improvement and then had it taken away, they get a lot angrier than if they were never expecting a better deal in the first place.

Vrbanovic expects that transit activists and others will be clearly focused on this concern in the weeks before the vote.

“There’s no doubt in my mind this is going to become an election issue,” he said.

Good.