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Ottawa’s sidewalk plows can’t clear the new sidewalk on the Eagleson Road overpass over Highway 417, so pedestrians have been kicked off until spring.

The province owns the bridge, and overhauled it last year. The city’s job is clearing snow.

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But Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson said a mixup somewhere means that the sidewalk as designed doesn’t match what was actually built last year.

And that leaves three problems, she says:

• There’s a steep edge to the curb at each end. A sidewalk plow (or wheelchair) can’t get over it.

• There’s a drainage channel in the concrete halfway across. The plow can’t cross that either.

• The concrete strip is too narrow for the plow, which needs a sidewalk 1.5 metres wide.

Wilkinson said a growing number of pedestrians cross the bridge, mostly to catch OC Transpo buses on the south side.

Signs telling pedestrians to keep off will stay until spring. But some cross anyway.