Civilian Shoveling Corps

[Didier]

Here's my idea: The Civilian Shoveling Corps.

Or, more specifically, a city program that pays people who go out and take care of unshoveled sidewalks.

So, it snows. Two days later, anyone with the MPLS CSC™ app gets an alert: Go for it.

You head out to your neighborhood. See an unshoveled sidewalk? Take a picture, shovel the sidewalk, then snap another picture. Submit through the app. The delinquent shoveler is then fined, the CSC shoveler gets $20 and the city keeps the rest. And on we go.

Based on my neighborhood in South Minneapolis, failure to shovel is a persistent issue, and the city appears apathetic to any sort of enforcement. If I went out with the CSC app right now, I could easily rack up $100 for an hour's work.

The CSC app: Takes care of the unshoveled sidewalks, steps up enforcement and gives everyday people an easy opportunity to make some fast cash.

Who says no?

[Didier]

In other words, what I'm saying is if anyone here is an app developer and/or a venture capitalist, let's go for it.

[Anondson]

Interesting thought experiment. I’m not sure the fining of the property owner will go over well.

I had an idea of a service/app where people who are unable to shovel (elderly, health, new parents, etc.) can put their name on a list for assistance.

Also folks who are willing to volunteer and charitably clear the sidewalks of their neighbors can opt in to the service

And the service alerts the volunteers of certain neighbors in need.

It could count as a charitable donation of time for many employers who give matching donations. The employer matching donation can go to a snow clearance fund that as it grows be used to hire snow clearing private snow clearing companies.

[Mdcastle]

How about the city maintain their own public property rather than forcing residents to do their work for them?

Of failing that, how about an app where one person per block or so owns a power snowblower and does the whole block, and the other residents make donations to help with the purchase, gas, and maintenance costs?

[SurlyLHT]

How about the city maintain their own public property rather than forcing residents to do their work for them?

Of failing that, how about an app where one person per block or so owns a power snowblower and does the whole block, and the other residents make donations to help with the purchase, gas, and maintenance costs?

Isn't this how St Paul does or did their alley's? But with snow plows?

[bubzki2]

Honestly, the St. Paul alley analogy is intriguing. Basically, each block could just pay someone to clear the entire block, perhaps the same company that clears the alleys. Of course, the city could do it too...

[Didier]

There's an (unoccupied?) duplex a block over from mine that hasn't been shoveled from the last snowfall. If the current system can't figure out how to handle single properties like that, I don't think getting the city *more* involved is going to help. The thing is, shoveling is actually really easy. For most snowfalls, clearing the short public sidewalk in front of a SFH takes literally five minutes. And the best part is that once it's cleared, everyone can use it again!

If I lived near a delinquent shoveler and could not only passive aggressively get them fined but also pocket $20 of their penalty, how could you say no?

Again, everybody wins: The rule-breaker is fined, the sidewalks are cleared, and random citizens make some easy money. All you need is a platform.

I've often wondered why a model like this doesn't already exist. Of course some public maintenance jobs need to be professionally done, but there are basic maintenance jobs that could easily be put on the open market for neighborhood dads to handle. For example, is there an abandoned property with overgrown yard? City staff won't get to it for a month? Why not offer $20 and see how fast a neighbor comes over to do it? Besides being faster it'd probably be cheaper.

[tedlanda2571]

You might be on to something with the city identifying maintenance issues and then having an app to quickly and cheaply contract it out to local residents, but I think leaving enforcement up to citizens (definitively identifying violations and paying them what is effectively a bounty) would be a nightmarish can of worms.

Right off the top of my head, I envision property owners simply denying it. "Sure, that's my house, but that guy didn't shovel it, I did." Or what if you catch someone shoveling your sidewalk and then get your butt out there and meet them in the middle? Or some hothead jerk just gets mad and beats the crap out of the sidewalk bounty hunter? Would we find after a winter that fines and bounties were disproportionately levied on properties owned/occupied by the elderly/disabled/poor?

I just think the city attorneys would put the kibosh on that tout suite.

[Anondson]

There is the risk of using it to harass residents, as I recall practically happened with Lisa Bender.

Also a risk that hyperactive bossy busybodies will sit at their window and time snow removal from end of snowfall and report neighbors incessantly.

[MNdible]

Also a risk that hyperactive bossy busybodies will sit at their window and time snow removal from end of snowfall and report neighbors incessantly.

This, 100% this. 311 is already full of people who apparently get their only sense of purpose by reporting other people's sidewalks.

[uptownbro]

Indeed there will be many a karens who will use it as a reason to get at the neighbor they dont like ect. Its a surefire way to create a situation that will eventually get the city bad press

[amiller92]

This, 100% this. 311 is already full of people who apparently get their only sense of purpose by reporting other people's sidewalks.

You (and Lisa Bender) also have the option of shoveling. "Your" sidewalk is an essential piece of transportation infrastructuree. specially if you're near a school or bus line or have disabled neighbors.

[MNdible]

You (and Lisa Bender) also have the option of shoveling. "Your" sidewalk is an essential piece of transportation infrastructuree. specially if you're near a school or bus line or have disabled neighbors.

"MY SIDEWALK" is cleared just fine and has never been the subject of a 311 call. I get notifications of complaints nearby me through the 311 app, and can confirm that the issues range from a little goat path through deep snow to a sidewalk that wasn't broomed down to bare concrete after a light dusting.

But thanks for your concern, friend.

[tedlanda2571]

"Your" sidewalk is an essential piece of transportation infrastructure. specially if you're near a school or bus line or have disabled neighbors.

(emphasis mine)


...I agree that properties on busy streets, near schools and along bus stops would be the most visible and affected spots, and thus I re-iterate my suspicion that a bounty system would disproportionately hit populations least able to clear sidewalks and least able to afford fines and bounties.

Put another way, it ain't gonna be a rich white dude deep inside Tangletown or down on Red Cedar Lane that gets busted every time it snows an inch or two.

[Mdcastle]

If it's such an "essential piece of transportation infrastructure" then the city should be maintaining it, rather than leaving it up to residents and thinking up better ways for residents to snitch on each other.

[Didier]

The idea of a central city shoveling service is obviously absurd. Let's take a system that works 95 percent of the time and replace it with an incredibly complex and expensive government program. No!

(Assuming you were suggesting that tongue in cheek, but still)

What I really don't understand is why the city struggles so much with this. Like, it's one thing if the random duplex on a residential street the next block over fails to shovel (and it does!). But in my area, by the river, there are certain roads that connect the neighborhoods to the river trails. These are east-west streets, which means corner lots, and despite these being the most traveled sidewalks they're often the one most poorly shoveled.

The worst was when I lived in Prospect Park, and Franklin is the only road connecting the neighborhood to the river. Often sidewalks on Franklin literally never got shoveled. If the city has limited resources for enforcement, it's hard to imagine getting more bang for the buck than addressing that.

Does anyone know the current fine for failing to shovel? A brief search earlier didn't pull up a number, but even if it's like $30 this should easily pay for itself. Put two guys in a pickup truck and have them drive around South Minneapolis three days after a snowfall, and they'd make $500 in no time!

[amiller92]

The idea of a central city shoveling service is obviously absurd. Let's take a system that works 95 percent of the time

What if I told you it doesn't (which you go on to demonstrate)? And, in fact, there are places where it works close to zero percent of the time?

I don't think that it should be controversial that the city/county/school district/met council should have more responsibility for making sure that routes to and from key destinations an transit facilities (i.e., bus stops) are accessible at all times. I'm thinking, in my 'hood, in particular of 46th Street between Bloomington and Hiawatha Academy. It's never shoveled (and, with curbside sidewalks, is hard to keep clear) despite the kids that use it to get to and from school every day.

Yeah, government doesn't really need to shovel my relatively quiet block that doesn't connect to any key destinations, but it would be better to go overkill than what we're currently doing, which drives vulnerable people (e.g., those in mobility scooters) into the street because sidewalks are not passable.

Does anyone know the current fine for failing to shovel? A brief search earlier didn't pull up a number, but even if it's like $30 this should easily pay for itself. Put two guys in a pickup truck and have them drive around South Minneapolis three days after a snowfall, and they'd make $500 in no time!

Until lots of complaints to city hall get it shut down.

[Didier]

Put two *city employees* in a truck two days after a snowfall, give them two shovels and there’s no way they don’t pay for themselves.

But again, if the city doesn’t have the resources to do it themselves, setting up a marketplace for private contractors shouldn’t actually be that hard, and every job they do brings in new revenue.

[Korh]

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

[Blaisdell Greenway]

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

Nextdoor? Only partially joking. Having landscaping companies drive in from the exurbs every time it snows to clear a parking lot and then drive out, while the parking lot up the road has a private company drive in and out strikes me as super inefficient. Paying kids/neighbors to shovel is a Green Jobs program.

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

Richfield manages to have municipal sidewalk shoveling (via plows on ATVs) so it's not some magical unicorn idea that is impossible to implement. If Minneapolis were to prioritize, say, snow emergency routes, the already identified top pedestrian networks, or even just "safe routes to school" networks that's a place to start.

DID and the uptown business association make snow removal work in their districts through fees, so smaller individual blocks or even neighborhood associations could so something similar if there's enough buy-in. There are a range of ideas, options, solutions and scale.

Yes, I know the park board won't even clear its own sidewalks but that does not mean a government is physically incapable of doing so, it just means they don't care about their users. If any number of municipalities around the world can make something work then it's just a matter of political will to get priorities straight. That's a different conversation, but we already have any number of governments out here clearing snow from public buildings, libraries, light rail stops, bus stops, etc.