Residents slip and slide on ‘terrible’ sidewalks

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This article was published 20/12/2023 (743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

During the noon hour on Tuesday in downtown Brandon, there was a lot of foot traffic along Rosser Avenue, but it was slow going as people manoeuvred through the ice patches on the sidewalk. Among them was Katherine Davis.

“This is terrible, I’m shuffling and having to hug the buildings, just so I don’t walk on the ice,” Davis said.

“I am not that sturdy on my feet, and I took a few tumbles already this year, so thankfully some kind people helped me up. The city should do better than what they are doing now.”

The City of Brandon is responsible for clearing roads and public walkways, but it is up to home and business owners to clear snow and ice in front of their properties, according to the community standards bylaw, said Patrick Pulak, the city’s general manager of operations.

“For years, it has always been the responsibility of property owners to clear the sidewalks adjacent to their properties. So, whether it be the side yard, the front yard — it depends. And that’s the same as commercial,” Pulak said.

“But we’ve never really had the ability to enforce it, there was really no enforcement component to it, and now there is. So, how do we implement that? That’s really the strength that we’ve put into the bylaw, and now it’s to try and enforce it.”

Council recently made amendments to the community standards bylaw that enable enforcement.

When a property owner is given a ticket for not clearing snow or ice and pays it within 15 days, the cost is $50. But if the ticket is paid after the 15 days, the cost rises to $100.

If after 15 days, there has been no action by the property owner, the city will clear the sidewalk and pass the associated cost on to the owner.

Bruce Miles and Rachel Yakimishen live in the city’s west end and say 26th Street, as well as the neighbourhood in and around Meadows School, is “really sad.”

“It’s awful and I’m young, I have good balance, but it’s not the nicest,” Miles said. “It seems people just don’t want to clear their sidewalks. Nobody cares, and that’s the bad part.”

Yakimishen added that if everyone obeyed the bylaw, it would be much easier to get around.

“You walk through the residential area, and you’ll have this path where someone will have nicely done their sidewalk, the way they’re supposed to. And then the next one you’re just hoping you’ll reach the end of the street,” she said.

The unseasonably mild weather that Brandon has experienced, combined with the eight centimeters of snow that fell earlier this month, is to blame for creating the thick layers of ice on sidewalks, roads, and parking lots, said Pulak.

And for those who didn’t immediately shovel the snow, it turned to ice and is now like “concrete.”

“I’d say 85 per cent to 90 per cent of people have done a great job in clearing the sidewalks in front of their businesses. The biggest problem is right around the Town Centre — it’s just an ice rink,” Pulak said.

“Unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about it right now. We can try and grade it off, but I’m going to end up damaging more of the sidewalk than anything else. So, we have gone around and sanded it, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Staff of the Town Centre has been applying a product to the sidewalks that melts the ice, said manager Tyler Byczkowski, adding that things are not progressing the way they want them to.

Byczkowski said a lot of the problems stem from the way the drainage system was set up.

“All the water from the top parking lot comes down to the front of the building and gets into the front loop. And unfortunately, as it melts — because the water is warm as it comes from the parkade — it then gets down into the front loop and freezes there, because the city storm sewers are frozen. So, we have nowhere to put the water,” said Byczkowski.

The supplier that provided the sand to lay on the sidewalk around the Town Centre, Byczkowski added, has run out of product.

The sidewalks need to be cleared as quickly as possible, said Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2), who represents downtown Brandon on council.

“For us to pride ourselves on improvements to safety and security downtown, we’re missing the mark here. Certainly in front of the public library and all along Rosser Avenue, we need to have that addressed,” said Desjarlais.

“And we’ve had next to no snowfall. What is the deal? We’ve just allowed this to become a safety hazard unnecessarily. If it means getting out with ice packs or something, we’ve got to do it that way. But we’ve got to get it off the sidewalks. It’s not acceptable.”

The amendments to the community standards bylaw included enforcement for not complying with clearing ice and snow, but Pulak said that first there needs to be education, to make sure everyone in the city is on the same page, including members of council.

“The revisions will be complete in early January, and we’ll bring the amended document to council. And that’s when we’re really going to pick up the education and compliance component of it,” Pulak said.

“The idea was that in the first year, we weren’t going to be heavy into fining or issuing tickets, but it really was going to be geared towards education and getting the message out there — ‘you’ve got to clean, you’ve got to clean.’

“And after a certain period of time, the honeymoon’s over and we move to compliance and issuing tickets,” he said.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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