Civilian Shoveling Corps

[MNdible]

An even better Green Jobs program is paying full time union workers to remove the snow, which we already do for roads.

So we're going to hire enough municipal employees (with full benefits) to shovel every sidewalk in the city in less than a day, and then have them sitting on their hands until it snows?

[Blaisdell Greenway]

What do MNDOT plowers do when it's not snowing? What do Richfield public works employees do when it's not snowing? What do Minneapolis public works employees do when it's not snowing?

[Mdcastle]

Bloomington uses industrial grade ride-on snow blowers to clear the sidewalks that can clear a block in a couple of minutes and then moves onto the next block. . It just seems bizarre to me that some cities force residents to maintain city owned infrastructure. It would probably be even easier to find employees to do that since you don't need a skill of driving a full size road snow plow.

[MNdible]

What do MNDOT plowers do when it's not snowing? What do Richfield public works employees do when it's not snowing? What do Minneapolis public works employees do when it's not snowing?

During the winter, the snow emergency itself takes three days and burns up quite a bit of overtime. Afterwards, there is ongoing clean-up of the roads and intersections (and I believe that they do tackle cleaning up the worst of the snowbanks at crosswalks). Equipment maintenance, etc. In the summertime, I expect that they transition to other public works efforts.

My point being that the sheer number of people needed to undertake the full clearance of all sidewalks would dwarf these other tasks and cost a lot.

(Anecdotally, I don't think my residential street has seen a plow since the last snowstorm. It's a mess.)

[John21]

https://longfellow.org/volunteer-shoveling-network/

[Didier]

That's not the point, though. There are plenty of people who are perfectly capable of either shoveling their sidewalks or contracting someone to help and simply don't do it. I'm looking for some teeth here!

[twincitizen]

I'm just wondering if there's a app that lets people request someone to shovel since hiring someone with a plow can be expensive for just a driveway and pretty much useless for a sidewalk and it seems a bit antiquated to relay on a friendly neighborhood with a blower or a kid who would jump at the chance for 20 bucks

There is: Shovler. It got a decent amount of press when it came about like two years ago. I have no idea how widely it's being used. Presumably not a whole lot since no one else here mentioned it yet. http://shovler.com/

[Mdcastle]

If you contract with a snow removal service rather than owning your own snowblower, do they go out and do the sidewalks too?

[Tyler]

If you contract with a snow removal service rather than owning your own snowblower, do they go out and do the sidewalks too?

yes.

[Tyler]

I've been thinking about this for a while. I wasn't sure what my opinion first was but I think I agree with Mdcastle. The city should clear the sidewalks. All this lip service we give to pedestrians? Seems like clear sidewalks should be pretty important and worthy of the necessary public investment.