The snowbanks are melting and so is the visual evidence of the negligent conditions when it comes to safety and accessibility for transit users at several bus stops around the city.
Following the events leading up to, and including the Family Day long weekend, the problems have now been well-documented on the subject. What the City's response will be could take two more weeks to find out.
At the tail end of Tuesday's Council meeting, Coun. Mark King gave notice of a motion that will come forward March 7. "Given the public concern over transit bus stops, it will be my direction to look for a staff report that will hopefully come forward at the next meeting to solve the problem that we're facing inside the City and also in the transit system."
Following the meeting, King, Chair of Community Services (the committee that oversees North Bay Transit) addressed the bus stop issues:
"The snowbank that you have talked about over the last several days, on McKeown Avenue, we had the same problem last winter. I thought we'd found a resolution. Internally, by speaking with staff as late as this [Tuesday] afternoon at our review process, it became obvious that the Public Works department don't have the facility [people and equipment] to clean it.
"I questioned them inside out, upside down over that issue in the review process. To my mind, right now, we're not going to play around with this any longer. We have a responsibility to the people who catch buses, and we're trying to run a very quick, efficient bus service. We can't do it with snowbanks where bus stops are. It's not safe, and I won't put up with it, and we're going to fix it.
"What we will do is go to a public tender, that's my intention. Public tender for the snow removal at bus stops and that will solve the problem," said King.
Asked for a time frame, King responded "the motion will be back in two weeks. I don't think we're going to have any real issues," passing the motion. "The thing is, we're going to get it going now so people don't forget about it. I fully expect staff to come back with a report that indicates how we're going to make this work."
After BayToday reader Amanda Syvret's opinion piece on the state of the bus stop bordering McKeown Commons (and a damning photograph showing the dangerous conditions) produced no response from the Public Works department, tips began to pour in about similar stops that were unusable.
Two days after the initial opinion piece, BayToday sought comment from the City as to why there had been no attempts made to alleviate the safety and accessibility issues at the McKeown stop that Syvret had referred to, the City opted to "temporarily remove" bus stop 1155 from service.
BayToday investigated and photographed different problem areas that had been touted as unsafe, inaccessible, or both by our readers.
Further investigation revealed a partial solution to avoid getting off of the bus in a dangerous location, by asking transit operators to make "courtesy stops," a provision written directly into the standards for North Bay Transit.
Finally, after several days of inaction by the City, citizens took it upon themselves to clear one of the affected stops.
The winter of 2016-17 is not unique for the challenges winter poses for transit and motorists.
In a March 2016 article from our archives, Syvret raised concerns over the conditions of sidewalks and bus stops in the Algonquin Avenue area.
From the same piece, "'The condition of sidewalks around the city is not very good, we admit and realize that,' Tanya Vrebosch Chair of Engineering, Public Works and Environmental Services, stated on her Facebook page on Thursday afternoon."
In a November 2014 interview with then-Deputy Mayor-elect Sheldon Forgette, he told BayToday:
"I know our reserves are pretty depleted for winter maintenance, so I think there might be an increase in the 2015 budget with regards to winter maintenance. I'm not unhappy. I think everybody does a great job, but I'd like to see it improve a bit."
