Should the city ‘plow the sidewalks’? Proposal would shift shoveling burden from homeowners

Whenever property owners ignore their legal obligation to shovel their sidewalks, up to 600,000 Chicagoans can literally become prisoners in their own homes.

They include senior citizens and people who just have trouble getting around. And they’re frequently forced to stay home because walking on a snow-and ice-covered sidewalks would put them in danger of falling.

A handful of alderpersons and mobility advocates are determined to change that — requiring the city to do it, even if it means spending more money on snow removal, hiring more employees and purchasing more equipment.

At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Hispanic caucus chair and 36th Ward. Ald. Gilbert Villegas plans to introduce an ordinance directing the city departments of Transportation and Streets and Sanitation to identify specific corridors — “some of them easy, some of them challenging,” Villegas said — to test a “Chicago Plow the Sidewalks” pilot program, with roughly $750,000 earmarked for the experiment.

Villegas will be joined at a news conference by five North Side Council members: 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez; 43rd Ward Ald. Timmy Knudsen; 47th Ward Ald. Matt Martin; 49th Ward Ald. Maria Hadden and 50th Ward Ald. Debra Silverstein. Also attending will be Laura Saltzman, transportation policy analyst for Access Living; Amy Rynell, executive director of the Active Transportation Alliance and Michael Podgers and Kyle Lucas of Better Streets Chicago.

“There are 170,000 people with ambulatory difficulties; 70,000 people with vision difficulty; 335,000 senior citizens; 110,000 households with a child under age 6. These are the 600,000 people who are impacted by not plowing the sidewalks who would benefit if we did,” Villegas said.

“When there is a snowstorm, they’re unable to get out of their homes. They’re unable to participate in the local economy,” he said.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Toronto, a sister city to Chicago and similar in size, already plows its sidewalks. Boston, Minneapolis and the Upstate New York cities of Syracuse and Rochester are “either doing it or talking about requiring sidewalk snowplowing,” Villegas said.

“If we’re gonna be a world-class city, then let’s act like it by providing world-class service to our residents. They deserve this,” he said.

Chicago homeowners and property owners are required by ordinance to shovel their front sidewalks. But that law is enforced seldom, if ever, and fines are few and far between.

That makes it all the more imperative for the city to assume the responsibility for plowing the sidewalks — even if it requires an initial expense to hire more employees or purchase more equipment, Villegas said.

After a testing and evaluation period that could last a few years, Villegas said his goal is to impose a citywide sidewalk-plowing mandate. It’s a “matter of fairness,” he said.

“Folks that are homebound by snow are being forced to pay application taxes. They’re having to order from DoorDash or Uber Eats. They have to pay to get their groceries delivered to them,” Villegas said.

“If the sidewalks were walkable, they could go to the local store and purchase things without having to incur additional costs,” he said. “They could go to their doctor’s appointments. We want to get people out of their homes as much as possible, spending money as much as possible, in order to create revenue for the city.”