Shut 'er down: We need to change our priorities about snow clearing

After the monster storm of Jan. 17 people might need to be reminded that we also got hammered on Old Christmas Day.

It was a significant weather event, dumping 40 centimetres on the east end of St. John's where I live. A week later the evidence was all around. 

There were mountains of snow plowed to the ends of parking lots, many obscuring sight lines for vehicle traffic. There was probably a mound remaining on your property where you deposited what had accumulated on your walkways, driveway and steps.  

On Jan. 9 you still needed an all-wheel drive vehicle to confidently navigate the one-way street in front of your house. By day five that road was two parallel six-inch deep tire tracks in a thick sheet of ice. 

It is embarrassingly backward for 2020 but in St. John's cars are, regrettably, driving the city.

It is appalling that in a place which purports to be a city — pedestrians do not have safe places to walk after snowfalls and so are forced to white-knuckle it on narrow streets full of cars and trucks struggling to find traction in the slush. 

The elderly or people with mobility issues are made prisoners in their homes. In the week following the Jan. 6 storm several citizens were struck by vehicles.

One man died from his injuries. Everywhere people were slipping and falling, breaking bones and conking noggins. It is embarrassingly backward for 2020 but in St. John's cars are, regrettably, driving the city.

I admire the Townie walkers who, when denied a sidewalk, militantly stomp down the middle of the road holding up traffic. They are not only making a point that evidently still needs to be made, but they are doing what they must to survive. 

Cycles of freeze, thaw, freeze

Precipitation after our snowstorms comes in all forms to freeze, thaw and freeze again over several cycles until the stacked snow morphs into rock-hard boulders of compacted, litter-reinforced ice. It is harder to clear the longer it is left.

St. John's shut down for a day after the Jan. 6 storm. A single rotation of the planet was plainly not enough to adequately respond to the amount of snow that had fallen.

Then came the most severe storm in living memory.

A state of emergency was declared that lasted for six days. The city had no choice but to take snow removal seriously. In the instances where they had the time to do so city crews did an amazing job. 

To once and for all take the guess work out of the response to snow in St. John's I propose Riche's Rule: In the rare event we get more than 30 centimetres of snow in a 24-hour period between Jan. 1 and May 1, the city should automatically shut down for two days to give the municipal authorities better time to clear the streets and sidewalks.

For every 10 centimetres more, a day is added. In a once-in-a-lifetime 70 cm snowfall — a work week would be sacrificed to realism and common sense, as was the case. 

Chit chat and lollygagging

Old St. John's is a chaotic warren of narrow roads and laneways on the side of a steep hill. There are few street verges, and in some cases the front door is less than a metre from the curb. On ways with row housing there is nowhere to push snow, it can only be removed.

Snow clearing in the old town is not a straightforward business. 

With the job unfinished in the time allotted them by a single snow day, the city surely causes more lost time than if they take the extra days to get it right. What is the cost in injuries from slips and falls, from backs and hearts busted shovelling snow? From automobile accidents?

People argue that businesses can't afford the closures. But we have greater connectivity than ever before. More can be done remotely now than in years past. I usually work from home and the thing that most strikes me when I have a gig in an office setting is how little gets done during the working day. 

Hours of it are taken up with coming and going, by stipulated breaks, by idle chit chat and general lollygagging.

How many meetings are so urgent they cannot wait a day or two? How many could easily be held via Skype? How many are completely superfluous? There are surely others but the only professions I have observed that work continuously while on the job are nurses and nursing assistants and city crews after a winter storm. Everyone else is shagging around half the time. 

The period when we get the heaviest snowfalls comes after Christmas so people are financially overextended and retail trade is slow. 

Few besides downtown livyers are venturing south of Military Road to shop or eat until the streets are navigable and some parking spaces cleared. 

The Yuletide festival is an orgy of socializing in town, what better time of year for a break from your networks than January and February?

Most people I talked to after the state of emergency were happy for the enforced "hygge," the time with family and neighbours. Everyone, I am confident, cherished the extra sleep.

Adding a week on to the school year, as MUN did, is an entirely sensible thing to do, recognizing a reality of where it is we live.

The working poor, people living paycheque to paycheque obviously need some formalized system of relief. And we could do the humane thing and increase the minimum wage to $15+/hour to give those making the least the breathing room to stand down a couple of days the odd year. 

Having school cancelled on account of weather is entirely predictable here so educators should prepare for it.

They could, every September, distribute a 'snow day reader' of Newfoundland and Labrador poetry and prose. I nominate Agnes Walsh to edit it. 

Adding a week on to the school year, as MUN did, is an entirely sensible thing to do, recognizing a reality of where it is we live.  

We hear all sorts of palaver about the value of flex time, how the four-day work week might actually increase productivity and we cannot consider a few days every other year to allow city crews the time to do their job? 

Winter is long and hard here, a physical and emotional trial for many. Isn't it prudent wellness should allow for the scattered nap?

• More from Edward Riche

The comparative ease of snow clearing in Mount Pearl and Paradise, as demonstrated by their abbreviated state of emergency following the Jan. 17 weather event, means they are ineligible for the days off.  

The second part of Riche's Rule is that a municipal holiday be declared any day in the summer when the temperature is forecast to reach 30 C. Only the restaurants and bars remain open, to make up for the lost revenue on the snow days. 

And why does St. John's deserve the rare extra holiday in summer?  See above.

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