This article was previously published on CambridgeToday.
A pilot project and study that would have explored the feasibility of making sidewalk snow clearing a city responsibility has been put on ice.
Cost estimates for clearing all sidewalks over the winter months total $2.3 million annually, not including the estimated $15 million cost for new equipment.
The numbers, provided in a capital status and forecast report heading to council next week, detail the reasons staff feel it's in the city's best interest to cancel any further investigation of the idea.
Deputy city manager Yogesh Shah reports that expanding the city's responsibility to all sidewalks in Cambridge would require about 40 new staff.
"Additionally, the city would require a further capital investment to expand operations facilities to house staff, equipment and mechanic bays to support this expansion and additional mechanics to service the equipment and management/administration to oversee front line staff," he wrote.
The numbers reflect figures produced for consideration in a report prior to the 2023 budget.
The cost of adding additional sidewalk clearing service back then was estimated in five options presented to council. They included adding 42 kilometres of snow lifting, requiring one additional road crew at an estimated cost of $390,000. Adding four more routes totalling 42 kms was determined to cost $210,000 based on boulevards between 25 cm and 50 cm wide. Adding an additional eight routes with narrow boulevards and 91 kms of sidewalk to clear was estimated to cost $460,000 and adding the remaining 26 routes was in the range of $1.2 million, totalling $2.3 million for the full complement of sidewalks.
Council opted for the least expensive option and last winter the city added a snow lift crew to current curb-faced sidewalk maintenance program with a one-time equipment cost of $390,000. The expanded service required five part-time positions to be converted to full time and the addition of one extra staff member to do the work.
The city currently clears about 29 per cent, or 224 kilometres, of its sidewalks and paved trails at a cost of about $700,000 annually.
The responsibility of clearing roughly 550 kms of Cambridge sidewalks of ice and snow falls to home and business owners who are given 36 hours to remove it in front of their properties or face fines.
In recent years, council has pointed to the city's aging population when suggesting the city should provide enhanced snow clearing service to support homeowners who can't clear sidewalks on their own.
Those discussions are what prompted a request that staff look into the cost and other implications of the city taking on the responsibility like it is in Guelph and Stratford.
Citing the findings of recent sidewalk clearing pilots done by the City of Kitchener that resulted in cancelling the idea due to high costs, Shah said a pilot in Cambridge is unnecessary since it would likely come to the same conclusions.
In its study, Kitchener found the expanded service would come with environmental impacts from more salt use, boulevard damage and space limitations to accommodate new staff and equipment.
Although it isn't mentioned, increased liability would also be a factor.
Shah wrote staff feel the Kitchener study is representative of what would happen in Cambridge, resulting in the same or similar recommendations and constraints.
There is no indication of how much a similar study would have cost Cambridge.
If modelled on the Kitchener pilot, it would have had city staff clear snow from sidewalks in a predetermined area over one season then engage with the public on its effectiveness.
The proposed City of Cambridge sidewalk clearing study is mentioned among four projects set to be cancelled this year at a combined cost savings of $985,884.
The other three projects getting the axe include city works that were supposed to be part of the region's reconstruction of Fountain Street North from Maple Grove Road to Kossuth Road, and a growth management study both of which were completed by the region without the need for city funding.
A Class Environmental Assessment of a North Cambridge collector road will be split in two, with the first phase of work completed by a developer and the rest applied to a future budget year.
