Promises to start clearing snow and ice from sidewalks in downtown neighbourhoods may go largely unfulfilled this year, if Toronto council goes along with a report recommending snow clearing on a few residential streets through the coming winter.

Those recommendations would have the city embark on a limited test of mechanical snow removal on sidewalks, only on streets where that service is already provided to seniors and people with disabilities. Otherwise, sidewalks in the former City of Toronto would remain the responsibility of adjacent homeowners.

“I’m disappointed,” said Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto-St. Paul’s). “Last year, in response to complaints by many residents the mayor wrote to transportation services and asked them to report. Many months have gone by, and for them to come back with really nothing more than piloting some very slight incremental improvements . . . does not adequately prepare Toronto for the coming winter season.”

The report was requested by Mayor John Tory and endorsed by council after the particularly harsh winter of 2018-19. Among other things, it addresses the question of sidewalk snow clearing.

Currently, residential streets in the old City of Toronto — about 1,400 kilometres of them — do not see their sidewalks cleared by city workers, while sidewalks in the rest of the city do.

Last winter, consistently cold weather meant that old City of Toronto sidewalks that had not been cleared accumulated dangerously thick amounts of compacted snow and ice.

The report coming to the Oct. 17 infrastructure and environment committee was produced with the help of two outside consultants, one of which (HDR Inc.) recommended that the city embark on an inventory of all 1,400 kilometres of unplowed sidewalk, and in the coming winter start a trial program on 250 kilometres of city sidewalks.

But Toronto staff say even 250 kilometres is beyond the city’s ability to do, and are recommending a much smaller trial — in parts of the city where seniors and people with disabilities are already receiving manual snow clearing from the city.

That was a disappointment to councillors and residents who had been calling for fairer access to services.

“Some streets are being treated differently than others and it’s not fair for us to not have our streets cleared,” said John Plumadore, president of the Deer Park Residents Group in the Yonge Street/St. Clair Avenue area.

“We are paying the same taxes if not more in our neighbourhood — it’s a double standard.”

Coun. Paula Fletcher (Ward 14, Toronto-Danforth) had been hoping for some equity for her constituents — half of whom live on streets in the former borough of East York, north of Danforth Avenue, and receive snow clearing. The other half, south of the Danforth in the former City of Toronto, do not.

“The street grid on the north and south side are the same,” said Fletcher, who rejected the argument often advanced by city staff, that the narrower sidewalks in old Toronto make mechanical cleaning too much of a challenge.

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“Buy some smaller equipment for parts of town that are denser and smaller,” she said. “They do that in other parts of the world.”

Tory’s spokesperson, Don Peat, said in an emailed statement that Tory is monitoring the issue.