Guest column

A clear path to municipal sidewalk plowing

ROBIN WONSLEY

Rich Ryan

Posted Wednesday, February 22, 2023 5:57 pm

UPDATE 2/27/23

The Council unanimously passed the legislative directive by me and Council Member Chughtai that will guide a policy conversation of how the city can advance a municipal sidewalk plowing program. This has been a conversation that predates myself and many of my colleagues, and I am excited to continue this work and begin investment in a program in 2024.

This has been a priority of my office since we started this term and we’ve had a lot of intentional conversations with community groups, residents, city staff, and local and national experts on climate resilience. Moving forward with municipal sidewalk plowing helps ensure that our city is ready to respond to the coming impacts of climate change.

After holding many conversations with constituents and community members across the city, there seems to be collective agreement that any program by the city would need to be phased-in and we believe the prioritization of the Pedestrian Priority Network should take precedence for the first phase. This is why it's specifically highlighted in the directive and the prioritization of these routes within this network would bring a significant amount of relief for pedestrians and transit riders who continue to have a difficult time getting around our city.

I am looking forward to this analysis coming back in June so my colleagues and I can spend the summer engaging the community on next steps and how they envision a potential program moving forward. I want to say thank you to all the residents in the ward as well as community members city-wide who have reached out to my office with their feedback, insights, and suggestions. My office is documenting these ideas and considerations to ensure they are incorporated into the larger conversation. In the meantime, I look forward to the monthly updates on progress regarding this directive and continued conversations with constituents and community members. ~ From Council member Wonsley's e-newsletter

By Robin Wonsley, Ward 2 Council Member

As a member of the Minneapolis City Council, it’s my job to work with the community to advance concrete policies that help improve the lives of working class people. That’s why one of my top priorities this term is creating a municipal sidewalk plowing program.
The heavy snowfall this past January has reminded many of us just how big of a problem snow and ice on our sidewalks are. Normal tasks like going to work or the store become much harder and more dangerous. Elders or people with limited mobility are especially impacted. People who use wheelchairs or push strollers are put in extremely challenging positions and sometimes have to resort to rolling in the street. This is not the welcoming, accessible city that we want to live in.
Currently, the city takes full responsibility for plowing the roads, but sidewalk plowing is left to the personal responsibility of the property owner. That system simply isn’t working, as most any pedestrian knows from experience. There are thousands of unshoveled sidewalks each winter – in the winter of 2021, there were an estimated documented 4,500 unshoveled sidewalks across the city. Compliance varies widely, creating unequal conditions. Renters are subject to however their landlords chose to handle the snow. Elders and people with disabilities have to find a way to shovel, or pay punitive fees. Homeowners who live on corners are expected to take on twice the work of their neighbors next door. The result is a patchwork of compliance that doesn’t guarantee safe, accessible sidewalks for everyone.
The good news is that the city can begin investing in a municipal sidewalk plowing program relatively quickly, and scale up over the next few years.
To start, the city can focus on plowing the sidewalks that pedestrians rely on the most. The Pedestrian Priority Network (PPN) is about 15% of the city’s total sidewalks that the city has already mapped out and committed to improving. Starting with the PPN is a natural way to begin investing in the infrastructure that will be needed for citywide sidewalk plowing.
A sidewalk plowing workforce can also be scaled up over time. The city can lead a mixed-delivery model that could include a combination of workers employed directly by the city, contracts with small businesses and neighborhood associations, or temporary or on-call work for youth or other residents. The city already uses existing partnerships to remove snow and ice in certain areas of the city – think college campuses, Metro Transit, and the Special Service Districts that cover specific commercial corridors.
How much would municipal sidewalk plowing cost, and what would that mean for residents? One big factor in cost is frequency. In 2018, the city did an estimate that showed that plowing every sidewalk in the entire city every time it snowed half an inch would cost about $20 million per year, or about $95 for the median property taxpayer. Clearing less frequently, like only during heavier snow or a Snow Emergency, was estimated at about $6 million, or about $33 for the median property taxpayer.
In June, the council will receive the results of an operational and fiscal analysis that Council Member Aisha Chughtai and I authored to give us more updated and specific information about the options for beginning this crucial program.
By then, the last snow and ice from January’s storm will probably have melted away, but our attention to this problem won’t. It can be easy to forget about the snow when it isn’t on the ground, but the city must commit to sidewalk plowing for the long haul. As the impacts of climate change increase, there will be more extreme weather events. We need to develop programs and infrastructure now to make sure our city is resilient to the larger snowfalls that we know are coming. The current system of personal responsibility will only deteriorate further as the impacts of climate change bring more snow. Investing now will also help ensure that more vulnerable residents, like elders and people with limited mobility, aren’t disproportionately impacted by the impacts of climate change.
The sidewalks may be icy, but the path is clear: begin investing in a municipal sidewalk plowing program now for a more safe, resilient, and equitable future.
Contact Robin Wonsley at Ward2@minneapolismn.gov.