By Keely Grasser, City Hall Bureau
City council voted against a city-wide solution to the problems of windrow snow piles, but they say they will consider reviving a program for seniors and people with disabilities.
Bay Ward Coun. Alex Cullen proposed a pilot project in February to study removing the windrows, the snow ridges left at the bottom of driveways by plow.Council nixed that idea at the council meeting March 8, but instead voted to start a pilot project studying ways to remove the inconvenient windrows for seniors and people with disabilities.
The proposed project is similar to the city’s Snow Go program, which was scrapped in 2003. It matched and subsidized clients who couldn’t shovel snow to affordable driveway clearing services
“It was a very inexpensive program, and was very helpful to seniors and the disabled,” Cullen says.
The program cost about $26,000 a year. It worked with community groups including The Good Companions Centre, Ottawa Seniors Support and the Old Forge Community Resource Centre.
Old Forge used its funding to match seniors with snow removers that were reasonably-priced and police-checked. They went to the door to check on clients and to ensure the job was well done.
“It was a great program,” says Barbara Lajeunesse, executive director of the centre, but the windrows didn’t stop forming when the program’s funding was cut.
“In some parts of my neighbourhood … the graters come by three times in two days and put giant chunks onto laneways. A senior couldn’t move them. An average person couldn’t move them,” she says.
Old Forge, which is in the West End but is pointed to as instrumental in the formation of the Snow Go program, was fortunate.
Every year since the cut, a “guardian angel” has donated the same funding the city had been providing and Old Forge has been able to continue.
Funding programs to help Ottawa’s growing population of seniors is essential, says Lajeunesse, citing estimates that predict seniors will account for one in nine residents by 2020.Every service like this helps seniors stay in their homes longer, decreasing long-term health care bills, she says.
But Lajeunesse says there were some misconceptions about the Snow Go program. The service wasn’t free and seniors paid up to $20 a clearing. Also, windrow removal wasn’t completely organized. Some snow removers would return to the senior’s home after plows went by, but others didn’t.
“I’ll be interested to see what council comes back with,” she says.
When council defeated Cullen’s motion to start windrow clearing throughout the city, the main argument was that it would be too expensive.
“I was disappointed that council didn’t deal with the larger problems of windrows,” Cullen says, adding that he is content with the revival of a Snow Go-like pilot project – for now.
Not all councillors agreed with him. At a transportation council meeting, Councillors Stavinga and Bedard, though agreeing with the need for the program, wondered whether a pilot project was needed since the city already had a similar program in place. Council will debate the pilot project during deliberations for the 2007 budget.