Messages in the snow

The rain has melted all this away by now, but the state of Vancouver's sidewalks during our first blast of winter last week got me thinking about how snow-clearing reflects our attitudes toward each other and the community. 

This sidewalk-clearing job does not meet the city's bylaw requirements that property owners or occupiers clear all adjacent sidewalks of ice and snow to their complete width. But somebody has at least made an effort.

This stellar clearing job, just up the street from my house, makes it easy for pedestrians and those using mobility devices. My neighbourhood walks in the snow last week showed that while most people are at least trying to do some clearing these days, very few actually comply with the city's snow bylaws. 

The sidewalks of Vancouver after a snowfall are the stuff of a sociologist’s dreams, a treasure trove of material about who we are and how we behave as a community. They show how seriously we take the city’s stern warnings (actually, a bylaw backed by fines) to clear the sidewalks abutting our homes. They hint at class differences – the wealthy Shaughnessy area, for example, is renowned for its negligence in sidewalk-clearing – and point to the high level of vacant properties in certain areas. They show the contagion of neighbourliness – often, whole blocks will be models of snow-clearing thoughtfulness, as if people don’t want to be the only ones not living up to the standards of the street. They also show that some people clearly don’t care: if theirs is the only impassible patch on the block, so what?

 Our sidewalks also reveal how very differently people interpret – or are aware of – the snow-clearing bylaw, which states that the full width of a property’s adjacent sidewalks must be cleared of all ice and snow by 10 a.m. the day after a snowfall. Some people follow this to the letter – every inch is scraped bare to the pavement, then scattered with salt to keep it that way. Others have a very different interpretation. A single small shovel zigzagged lightly through the snow, as if to provide a hint of a path, suffices. This woodland-trail idea usually leaves plenty of snow, and potentially ice, underfoot – the message is that pedestrians should walk single file and hope for the best. Wheelchairs, four-wheel walkers, baby carriages and shopping carts are out of luck.

 Businesses are usually brisk about clearing their sidewalks; they get more customers that way. In my Dunbar area, the sidewalk abutting an entire block that had been torn down to make way for condos was cleared immaculately the day after our worst snowfall, as if to encourage positive vibes about the new development. But businesses are as variable as people. On Tenth Avenue, the ankle-deep snow on a sidewalk abutting a block-long vacant site where a Safeway once stood hadn’t seen even a tiny shovel two days after the snow began. Presumably the current owners figure their negligence will have been forgotten by the time a new condo tower springs up there.

I think a sociologist could have fun with Vancouverites’ variable responses to snow-clearing. It is, after all, a community service that means people care enough about their fellow citizens to try to keep them out of emergency departments. And those who clear their entire sidewalk of every speck of snow are acknowledging that some people use canes, wheelchairs, shopping carts and baby strollers to help them get through the day.

 The curious thing to me is why some people – and businesses – are so prompt and assiduous, while others are the opposite. Given that snowfalls amount to periodic emergencies in Vancouver terms, are people here any different than those elsewhere about helping their fellow citizens in a crisis? Does this city’s polarization between rich and poor, long-timers and newcomers, renters and owners, enter into it? Maybe the neglected sidewalks are due to large numbers of vacant properties – residents who are on holidays or living elsewhere for the six months allowable before the vacancy tax kicks in. Maybe the homeowners are elderly or disabled, and simply can’t shovel.

In my experience – and I have walked through all of Vancouver’s snowfalls for the past four decades – the state of sidewalk-cleaning is improving, although a very small percentage of it meets the city’s bylaw requirements. Word may be getting out that what was once considered a voluntary, do-gooder act is actually a requirement backed by penalties. Offences are easy to prove; all it takes is a photo of a snowy sidewalk a few minutes after 10 a.m. Last fall, 244 Vancouver property owners ended up in bylaw court for failing to remove snow during a particularly precipitous two days in February of 2019, according to a CBC story. Penalties range from a minimum of $250 for an owner-occupied house to $400 for tenant-occupied properties and up to $800 for development lots. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/snow-shovelling-vancouver-bylaw-court-1.5365469

But about those semi-cleared sidewalks: a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in November of 2019 that homeowners can’t be found liable for accidents on poorly cleared sidewalks. In that case, the homeowners had shoveled and salted, but because of the thawing and freezing cycle, their efforts had inadvertently made their sidewalk more treacherous, resulting in a man falling and injuring himself. Too bad for the injured party, but a reassurance to me; I was alarmed last week to realize that my careful shoveling was actually making the sidewalk more dangerous.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ice-snow-removal-sidewalk-lawsuit-1.5374652

My own Dunbar block is one of those good-neighbour ones, where people mostly scrape their sidewalks bare. Nor is it unusual for one neighbour to shovel part or all of a neighbour's sidewalk, as long as they’re out there. The next block up the hill is nearly as good, but on the corner is one new house, barely lived in, that regularly lets the street down with only a narrow, winding icy pathway cut through the snow. The reasons behind this one little stretch of impassibility, its impact, and the contrast with neighbouring properties – what a goldmine for a curious sociologist to explore!

The snow-clearing job in front of my house. Nope, it doesn't meet the letter of the city's rules to remove all ice and snow, but it's not bad.