Ottawa's snow removal standards are bad with no plan on getting better

The city's public works department has once again decided not to update its Winter Maintenance Quality Standards.

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There are two basic and immutable expectations upon which Ottawa residents insist: we don’t want our property taxes increased, and we want snow removed from our streets and sidewalks, quickly and reliably. Deliver those and a mayor or councillor can do just about anything else. Article content

So when the city launched a six-year review of its Winter Maintenance Quality Standards (WMQS) in 2019 with a promise to deliver updated standards to council in 2021, residents reasonably expected that to happen. After all, the standards about how, when and where snow is removed hadn’t been updated since 2003. Article content Article content

Ottawa’s climate, how