At #a2council this week there is a resolution directing staff to explore municipal snow removal of walkways and driveway aprons.

Walkway accessibility is an equity issue and well worth exploring.

Driveway aprons are a red herring and should be left as is.

First, walkways. Most blocks have a walkway or sidewalk that gets plowed in at either end. That means a block may have two or four small areas to clear after a plow comes through.

Thanks to CM Griswold for bringing this before council.

#a2council

These icy areas are hazardous, and often impassable for weeks after a snowfall. Ask any wheelchair or stroller user who tries to venture out in the winter.

Last year a local man died after falling over an uncleared patch. #a2council https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/02/ann-arbor-man-dies-after-slipping-on-ice-while-walking-dog.html

Clearing the entire sidewalk would be best, but clearing the apron is really important, as mounds of icy snow build up there.

Some cities manage to do this and more for their citizens. Grand Rapids is piloting it in areas. #a2council

https://www.damnarbor.com/2020/03/complete-streets-in-winter-case-for.html

Ann Arbor's Water Hill neighborhood operates SnowBuddy, a volunteer-run and funded service which clears all sidewalks after a snow.

Residents there find the service transformative, but scaling a volunteer service like this up citywide would be impossible. #a2council

Scaling up a service like this wouldn't be cheap - for all of Ann Arbor it would probably run about $2M a year. The city doesn't have a budget for that so it would probably have to be funded by a combination of grants and a ~0.4 mill property tax.

#a2council

So now we come to driveway aprons, the other part of the resolution before #a2council.

It asks city staff to devise a way to clear the snow that road plows fling onto the driveway after clearing a street.

Is clearing the driveway apron annoying after a plow comes through? Sure, especially if it's allowed to freeze overnight.

Is it hazardous to leave it uncleared? Is it an equity issue? I would argue it's neither.

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This would be a service explicitly aimed to please car driving home owners. It's a luxury, not a safety or equity issue.

It also seems impossible to implement - it would be a large area to clear and crews might be clearing 20-40 aprons every single block!

#a2council

TL/DR: Clearing sidewalks and crosswalks is important enough to be a municipal issue. It impacts accessibility and environmental action - both major goals for our city.

Driveway aprons are an annoying but in the end unimportant and probably unsolvable problem.

#a2council