Navigating sidewalks has become an issue for many residents in Toronto, city officials acknowledged Wednesday, as snow removal efforts continue after the weekend’s record-breaking winter storm.
City manager Paul Johnson said city crews are not doing enough to clear snow and need to improve their work over the next 24 hours.
“Last night, we started to send more crews out to look at sidewalks,” Johnson said at a press conference.
“We have more inspections happening. Clearly, there’s a gap in our performance around sidewalks, and we’re hoping to improve that over the next 24-hour cycle.”
He said the city has been receiving 3,000 to 4,000 calls each day this week, including many from residents reporting issues related to blocked sidewalks.
“Our No. 1 service request related to winter is around sidewalks,” he said.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said snow removal crews are also focusing on clearing bridges, highways, transit routes and residential streets.
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“We are prioritizing the narrow streets first,” she said. “Our salters are back out this morning clearing any remaining snow on arterial roads.”
Chow said more than 1,300 city staff and contractors have been mobilized as part of the effort, with an additional 175 staff redeployed for support to accelerate the cleanup.
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“Our inspectors are out there across the city verifying to make sure that contractors are doing the right kind of work and they are with good standards and that the snow is being cleared properly,” she said.
“We are increasing the numbers of inspectors with support from other divisions to make sure we can address some of the problems that we may have.”
She said snow clearing contractors are doing better work this year compared to previous years after the city fixed a system to track their work and see which streets have been plowed.
“We are actually looking at that map to see which road has been plowed or not, and I … actually personally drove to see if that road is actually done, and they are by and large correct,” she said.
“We’ve increased the number of inspectors and the supervisors to make sure that the contractors are delivering the kind of service we demand.”
The city has activated its second major snow event response plan of the year, which includes a parking ban on some major streets as well as streetcar routes.
Environment Canada said Pearson International Airport saw the highest daily total snowfall on record with 46 centimetres on Sunday, bringing this month’s snowfall total to 88.2 centimetres and making it the city’s snowiest month since records began in 1937.
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