City wants snowplows to dig a little deeper

Sudbury city councillors are calling for improvements to winter sidewalk maintenance.

The current standard sees the plowing begin once eight centimetres of snow has fallen.

But the city's operation's committee is recommending that work now start at five centimetres, and continually plow, which will end up costing taxpayers approximately $500,000 more.

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Coun. Robert Kirwan says the extra half million is worth it.

"If we take a look at our current standards and we see that it just doesn't seem to be meeting the needs of people who need to access our streets, especially if they're in need of using scooters and walkers and they've got accessibility problems," Kirwan said.

Plows to deploy sooner, stay out later

He added that the recommendation would get snow removal crews out sooner, and keep them plowing more, which makes good economic sense for the city.

"To basically say we're going to deploy people on our sidewalks at five centimetres and we're going to keep clearing them on what sounds to me like an eight hour rotation, I can't see for $500,000 us not looking at a business case," Kirwan said.

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It's not the first time Kirwan has pushed the idea forward. He said last year the city needs to do a better job of keeping its sidewalks clear.

And last year Coun. Fern Cormier said most of the complaints he receives are about impassable sidewalks.

The operations committee's recommendation to enhance sidewalk maintenance will be discussed later this year around budget time.