SASKATOON – Satisfied. That’s the overall opinion to a survey done by the city on overall services provided in Saskatoon.
The results were released Friday in the 2014 Civic Services survey which found 86 per cent of telephone respondents and 79 per cent of those surveyed online said they were satisfied or very satisfied with overall services.
That compares to 83 per cent and 73 per cent respectively in 2013.
The number one issue in the city? Roads, where 37 per cent of phone participants and 19 per cent of online survey takers said it should stay at the top of the priority list.
Catherine Gyrba, general manager of the corporate performance department, said the yearly survey plays an important role in decision making.
“For example, Saskatoon’s 2014 Road Plan and Building Better Roads campaign is a result of feedback from last year,” said Gyrba.
“Now we’re in the middle of the most aggressive program of road work in this community’s history.”
The city upped its investment into roads to $50 million, up 47 per cent from 2013.
“This investment is already paying off by the notable increase in citizen satisfaction with snow and ice road maintenance, and maintenance of major roadways and freeways,” said Gryba.
On the issue of snow removal, people were divided on whether they would be willing to pay an $8.00 monthly surcharge to have snow removed from residential streets once ploughed to the side.
- Roll Up To Win? Tim Hortons says $55K boat win email was ‘human error’
- Ontario premier calls cost of gas ‘absolutely disgusting,’ raises price-gouging concerns
- Bird flu risk to humans an ‘enormous concern,’ WHO says. Here’s what to know
- Election interference worse than government admits, rights coalition says
The question was raised after the significant amount of snowfall last year.
“The survey results were not strong either way – 56 per cent supported and 40 per cent did not support,” Gyrba told Global News.
Gyrba said that information will be passed on to council when the budget is present in December to be assessed with other priorities like road and park maintenance, housing and leisure activities.
Other results of the survey found quality of drinking water, water main breaks repairs, road maintenance, fire protection and police services were given the highest importance.
The highest ratings for performance were given to quality of drinking water, fire protection, electrical services reliability, garbage collections and police services.
The telephone survey is considered accurate with 4.4 percentage points 19 out of 20 times while there is no applicable margin of error for the online survey as it is considered a non-random sampling technique.
Comments