Dig in: Community sand boxes are coming back

After a winter of slips and falls,city council voted Tuesday to bring back the community sand box program.

The sand boxes should be back in place within the next couple of weeks, Deputy City Manager Doug Jones said.

The program had been cancelled this winter to save the city $300,000.

Instead of 100 boxes available at community centres across Edmonton, the city had decided to offer sand at just fiveboxes, all of them at city roadway maintenance yards.

According to data from the city of Edmonton, 91complaints of slipping and falling on sidewalks were received from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 last year.

During the same timeframe this year, the city has received 151 complaints.

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Coun. Michael Walters was behind the motion to reinstate and improve the community sand box program.

"Restore the sand," he urged his fellow councillors Monday.

Coun. Bev Esslinger wanted to know if it was possible to expand the program to communities who didn't have sand boxes before.

Coun. Ben Henderson said the program has become even more important in the city in the last two to three years, with the increasing frequency of rain and freezing rain.

He wants to see some improvements, though, in how the city refills the boxes.

A complaint frequently heard about the sand boxes is that they were often empty.

"We need something better than we had before," Hendersonsaid.

Mayor Don Iveson asked ifadministration would look at bringing back the program this winter, given that there are likelymonths of snow and ice ahead.

Jones said the program will be reinstated in the next couple of weeks. But theadministration will look fora better way to dealwith slippery city sidewalks next winter.

"We had some pretty nasty conditions a couple of weeks ago, and sand is probably not the best option for some of those," he said. "We will look at different things. There's lots of options that are available to us and we're exploring those."

The city is also starting a pilot project, he said,using de-icers on the Yellowhead, Gateway Boulevard and Calgary Trail, as well as sidewalks the city maintains downtown.

That project will begin Feb.15 and last until the end of the winter.