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Report looks at costs of more sidewalk plowing in winter

Extending plowing to all 440km would cost $1.34M to implement
sidewalk_plow
Improving sidewalk snowplowing in the city would cost an extra $265,000 to $1.34 million, says a report headed to the city's finance and administration committee next week. File photo.

Improving sidewalk snowplowing in the city would cost an extra $265,000 to $1.34 million, says a report headed to the city's finance and administration committee next week.

Currently, about 75 per cent of Greater Sudbury's 440 kilometres of sidewalks are plowed during winter, meaning 115 kilometres remain snow covered.

Complicating the issue, 50 kilometres of the unserviced sidewalks are older and are just four feet wide, rather than the modern standard of five feet.

“In order to maintain narrow 1.2 m width sidewalks, specialty plowing equipment would be required,” a staff report on the issue said. “The majority of the 1.2 m wide sidewalks are located in the communities of Falconbridge, Lively, Levack, Onaping, Coniston, Garson, Capreol, and Copper Cliff. 

“In many instances, the city inherited these 1.2 m wide sidewalks which were constructed by the former mining companies INCO and Falconbridge to their respective standards of the time.”

Currently, sidewalk plows are dispatched when at least eight centimetres of snow have fallen, within four to 24 hours after a storm has ended. Sidewalks on just one side of the road are cleared on residential streets, or both sides in more densely populated areas.

The report outlines three options for improving service. The first would focus on priority routes, adding about 10 km to existing routes.

“For the purpose of winter sidewalk maintenance, priority routes are defined as sidewalks located adjacent to or near a school, library, hospital or bus stop,” the report says.

“One such example is for providing winter maintenance to the presently unmaintained sidewalk along Bruce Avenue and St. George Street (in the Donovan), which would link the maintained sidewalk along St. George Street to Queen Elizabeth School.”

That option would require buying a $150,000 sidewalk plow and attachments, as well as a $5,000 trailer. That's in addition to $110,000 a year in new annual operating costs for maintenance and labour. 

Option 2 would add a total of 26 km to current routes, at a cost of $550,000. That includes buying two new plows for $300,000, $10,000 for two trailers and $240,000 in new annual operating costs. It includes everything in the first option, plus 16 km for plowing sidewalks on one side of the street on Third Avenue in Lively.

The final and most expensive option would extend plowing to all sidewalks in the city, at a cost of $750,000 for new plows, $15,000 for trailers, and $575,000 in new annual operating costs.

The report also gives the option of tendering the added work to a contractor, although they don't know how much money it would save until the bids on the work come in.

The report on added sidewalk plowing will be reviewed at the committee's Oct. 4 meeting. Any of the options could them become part of deliberations for the 2017 budget.


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Darren MacDonald

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