Another snow event, another discussion revolving around snow clearing in Waterloo Region.
Former Chair of the board at KW AccessAbility David Kuhn said that he was lucky to not have to run any errands during Monday's snow event, otherwise he would have felt trapped like he has during past snow storms.
During heavy snowfall, it's difficult for people with accessibility issues to use local transit to go to work, go to an appointment or buy groceries when the sidewalks, crosswalks and transit stops aren't cleared.
Kuhn said the only way is to have mobility plus or a taxi booked beforehand and if you wait too long, you're stuck.
He explained why he thinks snow clearing continues to be an issue.
"The different levels of government, I don't believe they communicate well enough to ensure accessibility needs are met. The transit stop might be cleared, but if the sidewalks adjacent to that are not cleared, it does a person no good because they can't actually get to that transit stop to use it."
This brings forth an important question. Who is responsible for what on the pathways from people's houses to local transit stops? Kuhn said it depends.
"Sometimes it's the region, sometimes it's the city," said Kuhn. "I think their needs to be uniformity across the system. Everything is connected. To get from point A to point B, you need certain conditions."
Grand River Transit (GRT) Assistant Director Neil Malcolm confirmed Kuhn's point about communication, saying that it is a real coordination of efforts from different partners.
He explained that GRT is responsible for clearing snow in and around the bus stops, residents are responsible for the snow around their homes, and city crews are responsible for roads and the rest of the sidewalk areas.
Malcolm also said it's important that everyone is not just pushing snow around. That's why they usually wait 24 hours before clearing the stops.
"When storms come back to back to back like that, it maybe feels like the stops aren't being cleared as quick as possible, but we are out there clearing the stops as soon as possible after the snowfall ends and making these stops as accessible as possible."
Kuhn ended by saying that this is something that is talked about every year, and there's still no remedy in sight.
"We live in Canada. It just boggles my mind that we have not come up with a way to deal with this yet. Waterloo Region prides itself on being a centre for innovation. I don't know why we can't come up with an innovative solution for dealing with snow removal."
