Notes and next steps - Improved sidewalk snow clearing in Portland

[Damon Yakovleff]

Good evening, everyone. Thanks for being a part of a highly productive meeting on sidewalks snow clearing in our city on June 25th. The members of the Bike / Ped committee who attended have reviewed our notes and generated an outline. This includes some of the key points discussed and some potential follow up actions.

Follow up actions are as follows:

Short term:

• Create postcard or other simple document outlining requirements (BCM may be able to help with this). Document to be in multiple languages.
  
• PBPAC and other pedestrian stakeholders will be a part of updates to city-cleared route maps
  
• Neighborhood organizations will have an opportunity to identify priority routes for enforcement of existing clearing ordinance, potentially using fix-it application
• Ensure services to assist seniors or others needing assistance with clearing continues to be available, possibly expanded.
  
• Create a "countdown clock" and clearly announce the times by which sidewalks must be cleared for both residential and commercial. Will use internet and other media.
  
• Public services will work to ensure staff and contractors are educated about winter protection of street trees
  

Longer term / More Difficult Changes

• Change ordinance to allow fines after one warning per winter instead of current system which requires one warning for every storm before any fines can be issued to residential landowners. Requires outreach to Councilors.
• Gather more information about costs to enact city-wide clearing by DPS, or some kind of hybrid approach.
• Inform neighborhood organizations of options for fundraising / dues / donation funded neighborhood-org led clearing. (If interest is high, this could be a shorter term solution)
  

As discussed at the meeting PBPAC will look forward to playing a constructive role with the city with implementation of these follow up actions.

Thanks again for everyone's work on this. Please fill in any details that have been missed by replying to this email thread.

Damon

[Abby King]

This was a great meeting Damon. Thank you for organizing it and for taking and sending such thorough, action-oriented follow-up steps!

Abby King

Community Advocacy Coordinator

Bicycle Coalition of Maine

ab...@bikemaine.org

207.956.6538

[n.annett...@gmail.com]

Agreed. I hope we can make some improvements and I'm so glad you all also want to talk about snow on sidewalks in the middle of summer :-)

Sent from my iPhone

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[Damon Yakovleff]

You're welcome, Abby. And thank you (and BCM) for the offer to help with the mulch-language postcards / info-graphics!

[Celina R Azevedo]

I'd like to join in the thanks to Damon and everyone else who is making these meetings happen. I'm particularly excited about the countdown clock and the effort to switch to one warning per season. 

I've been avoiding the issue of the multilingual postcards because I haven't had much time myself lately to contribute to the snow clearing effort (other than some edits to the post-meeting document), but now I feel the need to speak up. I know Portland's international community through my work at Preble Street's food pantry, and most of them speak enough English to be able to read a warning about snow removal. This is before they're even allowed to work in this country (which is why they rely on the food pantry to make ends meet). I doubt there are more than a couple of homeowners in the city who don't speak English. There may be cultural or financial barriers that keep immigrants from shoveling their walks but I really don't think language is the problem. I worry that these multilingual cards will be the equivalent of the bathroom signs which say "Employees must wash hands" and nothing else in Spanish: superfluous at best, tending to insulting. I appreciate the energy that's directed at this task but I would like to see it redirected to some more productive end like council outreach on one warning per season, for one example. I may be the only one of us who frets about offending immigrants but I just don't think this is a productive use of our precious time. 

Celina

[Damon Yakovleff]

Hi Celina,

I think you raise a great point. Perhaps it would be better to focus on a single well-designed info-graphic that communicates the requirements without being overly wordy. I think just a few simple words and numbers with graphics would work. This would also have the advantage of being less likely to be ignored in general, including by native speakers. In addition, we haven't discussed how to pay for the postcards or their distribution: One language might be all we can afford anyway.

[Celina R Azevedo]

Thanks, Damon. I think "clearing snow" and "24 hours" plus a few words to add specificity should be able to get the point across. 

Celina