It's annoying when homeowners dump snow from their driveways onto city sidewalks and roadways after a storm and now the City is moving to tighten restrictions on where snow can be dumped.
Council has amended the snow deposit by-law which regulates where snow can be placed within the road allowance in order to maintain effective snow removal operations.
The action was prompted by problems with cleared roadways being fouled by snow dumped by private citizens and private contractors.
The bylaw has been amended to include the prohibition of blocking a sidewalk.
"When snow is placed on a sidewalk, city crews must return to re-clean the sidewalk resulting in extra costs for sidewalk winter maintenance," states a staff report.
"There also exists a time during which the sidewalk may be a hazard for users even though the sidewalk plows have already cleared the sidewalk."
The amendment will also outlaw any snow from being moved from one side of the road allowance to the other side.
"When snow is moved in this way, banks become oversized resulting in sight-line issues, spring flooding is increased due to ditches being compacted, travelled roadway portions have snow debris left behind causing a hazard, road surface treatment is removed causing a hazard, and narrowing of streets occurs due to improper equipment being used to push snow across the roadway," explains the report.
Previously the bylaw allowed for the snow to be moved across the roadway before the roadway had been cleared, or hauling snow across the roadway after the plows had passed.
Now, the amendment will prohibit relocating snow within the road allowance that encroaches on the “maintained” portion of the roadway instead of the “cleared” portion of the roadway. In the past snow had been pushed into areas where the plow had not yet passed by and as a result, there was no infraction.
"That act causes hardship for people next door when a person pushes all their snow to one side of their driveway on the street side before the plow arrives, and when the plow arrives, all the snow is pushed into the neighbor’s driveway. The act can also cause a hazard for vehicular traffic where snow depth and firmness is changed by piling before the plow attends and a vehicle can sustain damage or loss of control.," the report states.
The City hopes the amendments will help reduce costs for the snow removal operation by reducing repeat plowing and treatment of streets and sidewalks where fouling was a result of private snow removal operations.
Councillor Mike Anthony says it will solve an ongoing issue.
"Once the sidewalks have been cleared with our small machine, folks shouldn't just throw their snow onto the cleared sidewalk. Obviously that increases cost for people to have to come back and it's difficult for people with walkers to get through as well."
Councillor Tanya Vrebosch says it's not just homeowners.
"Private contractors that do snow removal need to pay attention to some of these changes because it will affect them as well."
