City serious about sidewalk safety
Jim Holt picked his way through piles of snow and rivers of slush and across sheets of ice. A piece of paper fluttered in his hand.
Holt, 62, is one of nearly two dozen inspectors who fanned out across Denver on Thursday in the wake of the “bomb cyclone” snowstorm. Their task was to convince the populace to shovel the city’s public sidewalks. And they’re getting more serious about it this year.
That morning, Holt volunteered for notorious Colorado Boulevard, the city’s worst spot for icy sidewalk danger, he said. He’d already left warnings at two mattress stores and a health care clinic by noon, and he wanted to deliver another to Taco Bell.
“This, they made an attempt,” Holt said, skirting around a patch of ice. “But when I see hardened ice that’s a foot thick or 6 inches thick, that’s crazy.”
In Denver and most neighboring cities, property owners must maintain the sidewalks alongside their property — and the city is cranking up the inspections this year.
Since October, city staffers have logged more than 4,000 snow-and-ice inspections.
That’s nearly triple the number for all of the last season, a result of both heavier snowfall and a streamlined inspection process.
That has resulted in nearly 2,000 orders to shovel, and about 150 fines of $150 each for failure to comply with the initial order.
Having survived the walk up the hill, Holt crunched over snow and ice to the door of the Taco Bell location and delivered his printed warning to an employee.
“So, your sidewalk’s not been cleaned,” he said gently. The notice gave four hours to clear the sidewalk. For residences, it’s 24 hours.
The employee’s reaction: blank confusion.
“So, is the city of Denver supposed to clean those sidewalks?” she asked.
Fair question. Sidewalks are for public use, but the law in Denver — and many other cities — says the adjoining property owners are responsible for keeping them clear. With thousands of miles of sidewalks, according to Denver officials, citizen shoveling is the only practical way to keep them accessible.
While the Colorado sunshine clears most sidewalks, snow and ice can stick around for weeks on shady north-side walkways.
“I don’t want to be in there as enforcement. I just want it to get clean,” said Holt, a senior city inspector who has a broad range of other duties, as he returned to the snowy sidewalk.
The vast majority of inspections take place in residential areas because that’s where most of the com Boulevard. plaints are. In Capitol Hill, for example, a woman in her 80s calls in up to 60 complaints per storm.
But sidewalk-clearing can be a bigger problem for some property owners than others.
Earlier on Thursday, Gloria Martinez, 69, scraped away at the glacial landscape alongside Federal She had been out from 7:30 to 9 a.m. in her Broncos jacket and hat, steadily clearing the walks around her one-floor house.
“I’m tired, but I’m all right. I’ve just got this little piece — the rest belongs to him,” she said, motioning to her neighbor’s house. But she wasn’t sure how much longer she and her aging numbers could keep it up.
“We don’t get kids coming around any more, looking to clean it up,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. Sell the house, I guess.”
The city’s official solution is to encourage goodwill among men. A “Snow Angels” program, available at 720-913-8452, connects people with volunteers to clear sidewalks.