Hey, he generalized so I can too. 
No, not when I lived there we didn’t:D Snow day? What’s that?
Where I lived, either the city plowed sidewalks, or they didn’t get done, or there weren’t any (sidewalks that is). The area of town I lived in, many of the subdivisions don’t have sidewalks, they have ditches. The last place I lived before I moved to the states, the city did them, and that’s true of a lot of sidewalks in the city. But there were a lot of places where they simply didn’t get done, Maybe chefguy can shed some more light in it, based on the part of Anchorage he lived in, but I don’t remember anyone ever being required to shovel sidewalks.
There was one neighborhood I lived in in the early 90s that had them. The streets got plowed “wide” so that there was plenty of room for cars and pedestrians, and like I said, city ordinance required the snow plows to “cut out” driveways, but of course they never did. There was never any clearing of sidewalks, and (probably) no requirement to do so. No one ever got tickets or whatever. And throughout the entire subdivision, not one single sidewalk was shoveled. And a lot of people would just drive the hump leftover from the snowplows “flat” then salt it. 
I mean, there’s not really anything that can shovel or snowplow a frozen solid berm. People either lived with them, or payed a private snowplow to clear their driveways when it got too bad. I’m guessing that because we lived with snow 6 months out of the year, people didn’t really fuss about it. I don’t really know.
But then Anchorage is kinda weird. Not too long before I left there was a sidewalk that was along a main road that didn’t get cleared, and I’d called the city to complain (it was on the main bus route, adjacent to businesses). What was odd is that the side opposite the businesses, and NOT on the same side as the bus stop or the businesses did get cleared. When I asked the city maintenance department their answer was “well that’s the one we have on the books to plow”. Okay doky then.
I’m glad to know all this though, IF I buy a house, that’s definitely something I’ll be looking at. That is, what are the sidewalk responsibilities? Having lived a lifetime where property that didn’t belong to me was taken care of by the people it did belong to, I’m having to wrap my mind around it a bit.
Heh! yes, every third 4by in Anchorage has a snowplow attached to it come Sept 15 or so. Even back when I was dirt poor (now I’m only grime poor), I could afford to have the driveway cleared.
Wow - the 72 hours sounds nice. We get 6 hours, though we’re only required to work on it during daylight, so there’s some leeway there.
Why indeed. If your dog shits anywhere except your own yard, you clean it up. Who doesn’t know this in urban North America?
We get 24 hours here.
It used to be 48 here, but they changed it this year.
6 hours Motorgirl??? Damn, if it quits snowing at 8am are you expected to go home from work at 2pm to clean it up? Wow (there are some things that suck about apartment living, but this sort of thing is just…wow).
I’ve always worried about that but we haven’t gotten ticketed for it yet. There are some good things about lax enforcement and friendly neighbors who don’t rat on you. 
Good news! I just double checked and it’s 8 hours for most residential properties. Somehow I conflated the 3 hours that businesses and apartment building owners get with the 8 hours for normal residential properties and came up with 6. Ooops!
I’ve never before lived in an area with both snow and sidewalks, so I didn’t know this was a thing before I came here.
I did work in an area with snow, and after I read all the rants, I started noticing the sidewalks as I was driving in my nice warm car. Some homes had clean sidewalks and some didn’t. Some businesses had clean walks and some didn’t. I never bothered to look the law up, but I start cleaning the steps to the warehouse and do the rock salt thing.
So…your ranting has helped reform someone who will never EVER live in a place with that much snow again.
Here the city ordinance is 3 hours if it falls before 4 p.m. After 4 p.m. and you have until 10 a.m. (And Sundays are exempt.) In practice, I’ve never heard of anyone getting fined, (and there is the slight catch-22 with Illinois law mentioned above concerning liability.)
I knew someone would dig up an article about that apartment complex rule.
I remember as kids me and my friends would grab shovels from home and go knocking on doors in the neighborhoods and offer to shovel sidewalks for cash. Didn’t have internet or video games then.
That still is happening.
By that I mean, the “offer to shovel sidewalks for cash” thing is still happening.
:smack:
I made a lot that way.
Of course, some snow days, I did it for free. As a young lad, I’d just start shoveling at one end of our four-block-long street til I got to the other end. Got “caught” by one old lady, and ended up with a well-paying shoveling/mowing/gardening gig until I went to college.
My son did the same exact thing - he got busted shoveling the next door neighbor’s driveway (she was about 65 years old and lived alone) and ended up with that gig until she moved.
One thing I do love about winter is listening to the police scanner - right now we have a disturbance at a Christmas Tree place in the town about two towns away from me - family argument about what tree to buy. Ho Ho Ho!
One of the best calls was the other day when a storm was expected - some woman called the Police Department freaking out saying someone had broken windows all over their subdivision - there was broken glass all over the street!!! The Police Officer very patiently explained what ROAD SALT was. We pointed and laughed for at least half an hour.
Still, my gosh!! What if you’re sick in bed with the flu? This is just…I mean I know that it’s a thing, (now I do), but THAT it’s a thing (and how it got to BE a thing) is still hard to wrap my mind around. Or probably more correct to say “irritating to wrap my mind around”. The whole “here’s city property, we pave it, we repair it, we own it, we do pretty much everything else with it, but YOU (who pays taxes for all those things) are required to shovel it” thing, is just blowing my mind a bit.
I mean, how did the homeowners go from “city property is city maintained” to “well, except some things, and those we’re gonna expect the homeowners adjacent to that city property to take care of” without a fight in some of these places? As is evident from some of the other posts, in a other places, city owned property is city maintained, PERIOD. So I’m wondering how this one item managed to get passed in some of these places.
I’m guessing it’s something that’s been done for so long that most people don’t bat an eye, but I’m sure people can see how it’d be baffling for those of us who came from the types of places where “maintained” means “maintained”.