PelhamToday received the following letter to the editor in response to an earlier letter on the state of sidewalks in Fonthill:
Mr. Voss wonders about the state of sidewalk clearing in Town. Well, it depends on where you live is the easiest response.
I travel along Canboro Road and Haist Street on my morning walk. Canboro Road, between Churchill and Vinemount is rarely passable in winter. The Haist Street sidewalk is passable if you are on the east side of the the road. The reason is quite simple. The sidewalk on Canboro Road is about two feet from the road. The sidewalk is also below the grade of the road. When the road plow goes through the snow is thrown over the sidewalk and covers it with large chunks of snow and ice. When the sidewalk plow goes through it struggles to make a pathway through this. It rarely succeeds. This pattern repeats all winter long.
When there is a melt the snow turns to water and runs down the sidewalk. The water has no other course to take. Overnight the water freezes and turns the sidewalk into an ice rink. The sidewalk plow comes through and spreads salt which only adds to the ice problem. The situation is finally resolved when all of the snowbanks are gone, like now.
The solution is simple and expensive. The sidewalk needs to be further from the road and higher than the road. I don't expect that this will be acted on. In the meantime we, the Canboro Road walking community, will continue to walk on the road, with the eyes in the back of our heads fully engaged because Canboro Road is a very heavily travelled road. We do this until we get to another cleared section of sidewalk, or we turn down a side street, which is also poorly cleared, covered in ice and compressed snow, with a 12-inch band of sand down the middle of the street to walk on.
Jim Pitt
Fonthill