The Editor,
A letter to Port Moody’s mayor and city council:
I wish to express my dismay at the way in which the snow clearing has been conducted over the last few weeks — or perhaps it is more appropriate to say has not been conducted.
Some attempt was made with the roads throughout the city but for some reason, all the sidewalks that do not have businesses or homeowners to clean, and which are the city’s responsibility to clear, appear to have been forgotten.
In view of the fact that our recent weather had been forecast for snow and all that accompanies it, I would have thought that precautions and actions plans would have been made to cope with this unusual weather.
Instead, there was no snow clearing from the first storm, then the snow iced over, which made it treacherous walking on the sidewalks. Then it rained and iced over again, another load on top of the first, then another snowfall and lower temperatures contributed to the streets as they are now, being very rutted and iced over, making them extremely dangerous to walk on.
The sidewalk on all four corners at the intersection of Ioco road and Murray Street are like rutted ice ramps going down to the road and very difficult to navigate.
I would like to know why there were no contingency plans to deal appropriately with this weather, not for just the roads but including the sidewalks. Presumably some of our taxes are used for this purpose but perhaps since city hall was closed for the majority of this period, it doesn’t matter to you.
Being shortsighted on this issue is not acceptable but it would appear that once the first snow fell and the forecast called for rain, which did not happen as forecast, the general feeling was wait for the rain to wash it away. That is fine if that had happened but the rain did not come as expected and when it did, then the lower temperatures came with it, which made the conditions worse.
Perhaps in future you could use your staff proactively, not reactively, when this type of weather condition is forecast.
I would like an explanation as to why the sidewalks were not cleaned, how they are going to be cleaned and what is going to happen moving forward as we are expected to have more of this weather. Or should we expect nothing to be done and continue to skate our way around the streets and pray that we don’t fall and break something?
Gillian Harney, Port Moody
