Cambridge councillor to table motion looking to improve snowplowing

You’re not alone if you’ve had enough of winter already.

Since that first big snowstorm in November, Waterloo Region has seen fairly consistent snowfall with a number of snow events declared. In fact, the City of Kitchener had declared six snow events this year. A typical year sees five.

All the snow has kept municipal crews busy, just trying to keep up. It’s also led to hundreds of complaints from residents who feel like it is taking too long to get the snow cleared.

Back on Jan. 8, the City of Cambridge published an update on the response to the weather events this year. It showed the city had received over 1,370 snow-related calls from residents.

After fielding several complaints from constituents, Cambridge Ward 1 Councillor, Helen Shwery, filed a notice of motion calling for City of Cambridge staff to improve snow-clearing efforts.

She was a guest on The Mike Farwell Show and provided more detail about the motion, set to be tabled at the Feb. 3 council meeting.

“I want them to be able to explain to residents what they are doing. Come back and give us a range of options to increase the level of service and give us, for example, more timely snow removal and to add salting of residential roads and sidewalks.”

Right now, Cambridge only salts intersections, and Shwery wants to see that expanded.

She said the people she’s spoken to don’t feel like the municipality is living up to its end of the bargain.

“We’ve had a lot of snow but hey, we live in Canada, and our cities should be prepared. Residents are frustrated, and a lot of the comments are, ‘I’m paying high taxes, and I expect my roads to be cleared, and sidewalks salted.’ And, I agree with them.”

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Extra maintenance will undoubtedly come with added costs, but Shwery thinks it can be done without impact on the taxpayer.

“I don’t feel we need to invest any more money because we spend a lot of money on other things that are not core services. We just need to refocus our priorities on core services,” she said. “I don’t believe one bit that we have to increase taxes at all.”

City of Kitchener feeling the heat

It’s not just Cambridge residents feeling frustrated over the speed at which plowing is taking place.

Kitchener took a bunch of flak online last week after it announced it was cancelling its snow event while many roads still needed attention.

Many of those comments also questioned the level of service based on the tax rate.

A statement to 570 NewsRadio, from the City of Kitchener reads:

“Even if snow is still falling or there is more snow in the forecast, the City can cancel a snow event once our plows have maintained all local roads to meet provincial maintenance standards. Cancelling a snow event does not mean that plows stop working. It just means that residents can resume parking on streets during permitted hours.”

The statement also pointed out that overnight on-street parking is banned between Dec. 1 and March 31, anyway.

It also stated that it can take between 16 and 24 hours from the end of a snowfall to get all the routes in the city cleared.

When a complaint is received the city said staff will go out and examine the area and will respond accordingly based on their findings.

Complaints about road conditions can be filed through the City’s Report A Problem web portal.