Cold weather, more clearing by city crews improve once-woeful Winnipeg sidewalk conditions

Public works officials in Winnipeg say sidewalk conditions are in better condition than they were during the previous two winters, when the city was deluged with complaints about ice and impassibility.

Cold weather this winter has resulted in less snowmelt pooling on to sidewalks and covering them with ice, said Michael Cantor, who manages street maintenance for the City of Winnipeg.

Sidewal conditions have also improved because the city has added 15 more sidewalk-clearing machines to a fleet that now has 45 of the devices, he said.

The city also started clearing residential sidewalks after five centimetres of snow instead of eight centimetres and also changed some snow-clearing contracts to allow for more frequent service and repeated sidewalk-clearing efforts, Cantor said.

Cantor made the comments after city council's public works committee reviewed a study of what nine other Canadian cities do in terms of sidewalk clearing.

That study found Winnipeg ends up with the most snow accumulation in Canada even though cities in eastern Canada receive more annual snowfall.

Melt from the resulting snowpack on boulevards, combined with few days warm enough to allow the city to use salt to melt snow and ice, gives Winnipeg relatively few options to improve sidewalk clearing during free-thaw cycles, the report noted.

There have been few of those cycles so far this winter, Cantor said.

Waverley West Coun. Janice Lukes, who chairs the public works committee, said she has only received a single complaint about a sidewalk, on Harrow Street in Crescentwood.

"We added more machines, we added more staff, we've done with the operators and we've decreased the level of centimetres [of snow] before we go out," she said.

St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard pushed for sidewalk-clearing improvements over the past two years.