Barbara Humphrey walks to work at the SUNY Upstate Medical University every day on the Euclid Avenue sidewalk. Despite the heavy snowfall in Syracuse, Humphrey can continue to walk on the there because of the new sidewalk-snow removal pilot system in place in the Westcott community up Euclid Avenue.

Humphrey, a member of the University Neighborhood Partnership Committee and a Westcott resident, helped spearhead a program through UNP to clear the sidewalks on a route in front of 500-block properties on Euclid Avenue and through the Westcott community. The program began in December.

UNP contracted Landscapes, Etc. to clear the walking route for residents after 3 inches of snowfall. The snow removal pilot program hopes to keep pedestrians on the sidewalks and off the streets. The goal is to have a walking route to Syracuse University’s campus and to the two local public schools cleared.

‘I always shoveled my own sidewalk and never complained about it,’ Humphrey said. ‘But I bought into this program because I want it to spread over the whole area.’

When UNP began its 2008-09 committee year, it analyzed some of the bigger problems in the community. It decided safety affected everyone from permanent residents to students and children, said Beth Rougeux, associate vice president of government relations at SU. Icy sidewalks rose to the top of the list as something that could be changed immediately, she said.

‘The snow removal pilot process is really to augment what residents or students can do already,’ Rougeux said. ‘It’s their responsibility to shovel snow on their property. This is a pilot, but it can’t be there every time. If snow happens, it’s there to a do a sweep when the snow gets up to 3 inches.’

Humphrey said she was a nonbeliever at first. She didn’t think that a program could be implemented this winter to make walking conditions better. Paul Walsch, an investment property owner who owns Campus Side Apartments, contacted Humphrey with his idea to start this winter.

UNP benefited from the lack of snow in December, giving Humphrey and Walsch time to garner support for their cause.

Walsch proposed an idea similar to a system Rochester has in place. In Rochester, the program functions on a larger scale but for a lower cost. Residents pay $11 a year for snow removal. Right now in the Westcott area, residents and investment property owners pay $70 on a voluntary basis to the program.

Based solely on voluntary effort, UNP contracted a snow removal company to clear the sidewalks. Walsch and Humphrey mapped out a route of roughly 500 properties where permanent residents or students from SU, Upstate, Le Moyne College, or the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry live.

‘We are not re-inventing the wheel here,’ Humphrey said. ‘My role right now is to work with Paul and John Perkins, the head of Landscape, Etc., to try to convince the city to generate interest and enthusiasm to expand.’

If more people joined the program, there would continue to be a fee to property owners – not a tax. As the amount of people participating in the program increases, the overall cost per property would decrease.

In order for the pilot program to pay off for Landscape, Etc., Walsh and Humphrey realized they needed 60 percent of the 500 properties on their route – about 300 properties – to pay into the program. Of those 300 properties, one-third would have to be owned by investment property owners because they have more properties on the route. UNP has reached about 50 percent of properties paying into the program, but because some of those homes opened up their drives to Landscape, Etc., the program is economically feasible for the company.

But Danny Kanter, a senior economics major, walks Euclid Avenue two to three times a day and said he ‘sees no difference from last winter’ in the conditions of the sidewalk. Kanter said he and his roommates do not shovel the sidewalks in front of their house on the 600 block of Euclid Avenue because in his lease his landlord promises to plow their drive and sidewalks.

Rougeux said she thinks the pilot is working but realizes every new project needs improvement. She said after the first winter she hopes to gain resident and student feedback.

‘Our goal is for people to realize this is the most sensible way to get snow off the sidewalks,’ Humphrey said. ‘Our greater goal is to get the city to do something mandatory.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on February 3, 2010 at 12:00 pm