Despite last winter’s plowing problems, Toronto council brushes off snow-clearing debate

Thestar.com
Oct. 30, 2019
David Rider and Jennifer Pagliaro

The plan for snow-clearing this winter and in the next couple of years will go to the budget committee for funding consideration without any direction from council as Mayor John Tory and his allies shut down debate.

A motion from Councillor Mike Layton to debate the city’s winter maintenance plan failed to get enough votes to be added to the council agenda Tuesday. Though two-thirds support was required, at 13 to 12, Layton’s motion garnered just enough support to see a majority of councillors disagree with the mayor and his supporters, including two of his executive members.

The issue pitted Tory and his mostly suburban allies against downtown councillors and a handful of North York and Scarborough supporters.

Last winter, city staff and contracted snow-clearing crews struggled to keep up after Toronto got walloped by snowstorms. Some streets went unplowed for days while ice and snow made some sidewalks impassable.

The sidewalk problem was most acute downtown, in the old city of Toronto, where city crews don’t clear the 1,400 km of walkways. Residents and private business owners are expected to shovel their own walkways unless they have special needs.

Suburban areas have a vast majority of their sidewalks cleared by the city. A limited amount of clearing is done in neighbourhoods around the inner core.

Tory called for a review of the equity of the situation last February, saying: “I know many residents felt frustrated with the service they received.”

City staff recommended a limited test of mechanical snow-clearing in areas where they are not currently plowed -- a smaller test zone than recommended by an outside consultant. The infrastructure and environment committee, chaired by Councillor James Pasternak (Ward 6 York Centre), recently voted against giving the issue a full airing at council.

The consulting firm, HDR, recommended a 250-kilometre pilot to clear sidewalks. Staff reported a smaller pilot would be undertaken, citing “limitations in the amount of available testing equipment” and other unknown challenges.

The size of that pilot -- 150 kilometres -- was not known until Tuesday, one of the reasons Layton (Ward 11 University-Rosedale) wanted the issue debated at council.

He said the committee was wrong and that council needed to give budget direction in order to make improvements for the coming snow.

“For the areas of Toronto with the highest proportion of pedestrians, meaning the sidewalks go almost unusable for some for the winter after major snowfalls, there’s an enormous accessibility issue,” Layton said.

Layton, who lives downtown and does not own a car, said last winter he had to lift a stroller carrying his daughter and a load of groceries through heavy snow.

“I can do that, there are many in our city who cannot,” he said.

“To have a divisive debate here that will go on for hours, which will pit the inner suburbs versus the downtown, is unhealthy,” Pasternak said. “Those debates are from council’s past. This is something we don’t want here.”

“If you start bringing this to the council it’s nothing but a Trojan horse motion in which we’re going to start talking about Nuit Blanche, high-level transit, ride-share, cycling infrastructure, and the disparities of those public policies issues across the city.”

He said the budget committee should decide how to proceed on snow-clearing as part of the 2020 budget. Council won’t confirm the 2020 budget until Feb. 19, meaning any resulting changes likely won’t be fully implemented until the winter of 2021.

City staff have blamed the discrepancy in sidewalk clearing, which has existed since Toronto amalgamated with different service levels in 1988, on difficulty clearing narrower sidewalks.

Staff said in their report that they would focus the pilot on areas that are currently part of a program where seniors and persons with disabilities can apply to have their sidewalks manually cleared by the city.

Every councillor who voted against debating the winter maintenance plan represents areas where mechanical clearing is already happening.

Tory and those allies focused on arguments of proper process, saying those in favour of Layton’s motion were presenting “false choices.”

“Those who would say you’re either in favour of safety or against it -- what a ridiculous articulation of what we’re dealing with here that is,” Tory said, adding that staff had identified their ability to carry out a pilot based on the equipment available.

“It’s exactly the way we should make decisions instead of bringing things here and having a big debate here where you just sort of say, ‘well cost is no object, the fact that we don’t even have the equipment to do it, forget about that.’”

But Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 4 Parkdale--High Park) said the proper process would have been to bring the item before council.

“Instead of this council having that information in front of it so that we as a council can give directions to city staff to prepare something so that we can debate it with information in front of us during the budget, some members of this council just want it swept away,” he said. “It’s scurrilous.”

Both Councillor Paul Ainslie (Ward 24 Scarborough-Agincourt) and Councillor Ana Bailao (Ward 8 Davenport), members of Tory’s executive committee, voted to support Layton’s failed effort to debate the item at council.