A person walks the dogs in the snow in Ravenswood Manor on Feb. 13, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
City Will Not Be Plowing Sidewalks Anytime Soon As Measure Fails In Council
by Quinn Myers
Despite only including two pilot zones, alderpeople were skeptical of Plow The Sidewalk’s feasibility and potential to incur lawsuits against the city. Advocates argue the service would help older Chicagoans and those with disabilities.
CHICAGO — A proposal to plow sidewalks in select areas around Chicago was blocked by two City Council committees Friday after opponents criticized the program as unnecessary and raised concerns about potential lawsuits against the city.
For years, advocates and some alderpeople have pushed the city to implement the Plow the Sidewalks pilot program, which would use city resources to clear snowy sidewalks that pose safety and logistical obstacles to neighbors, especially older Chicagoans and those with disabilities.
The movement gained traction in 2023, when City Council passed an ordinance to create a Plow The Sidewalks working group to determine how and where the pilot could be implemented.
That group released a report in May 2024 recommending four pilot zones be created for the city-run sidewalk clearing operation. But despite the City Council allocating $500,000 to the program in the 2025 budget, it had yet to be fully approved.
A separate ordinance required to determine the program’s parameters was introduced by Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) in February and finally was debated Friday during a joint hearing of the council’s transportation and pedestrian safety committees.
The legislation would have created a more limited pilot with only two zones on the South and Southwest sides, where city workers would have cleared snow up to seven times this winter.
But amid concerns over scalability and the city’s looming $1.15 billion budget deficit for 2026, most alderpeople voted against the measure or declined to vote while still participating in the meeting virtually. The ordinance was defeated by a 13-4 vote.
La Spata, the council’s chief backer of the pilot, admitted that Plow the Sidewalks was likely dead for the remainder of the current council term, which runs through spring 2027.
“We know that it’s logistically feasible. We know that many Chicagoans believe it’s necessary,” he said after the meeting. “The political will isn’t there, so we work on the political will.”
La Spata said he hopes to see the $500,000 already allocated for the pilot to be used for other accessibility initiatives in the city.
Advocates for plowing Chicago’s sidewalks held a press conference before a City Council meeting on Dec. 2, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Currently, Chicago landlords can be fined $50-$500 for not shoveling or plowing the sidewalk in front of their buildings after a snowstorm.
But sporadic reporting and enforcement often leads to stretches of sidewalk covered in snow and ice for days or longer. That creates hazardous conditions for people with disabilities and mobility concerns, disability rights advocates have said repeatedly.
Speaking during the public comment period of Friday’s meeting, Laura Saltzman, a policy analyst with disability rights organization Access Living, implored alderpeople to give the pilot a chance.
“I understand that for some of you, icy and snow-covered streets and crosswalks are not a big deal — at least until you slip and get a concussion or need to use a stroller or develop a disability yourself,” Saltzman said. “But for many people with mobility disabilities, it means not being able to get to your job or to the grocery store.”
Those comments were echoed by other advocates, but only a few alderpeople weighed in with support Friday.
La Spata stressed that there were no plans to scale the operation to include the whole city — which led several of his colleagues to question why the pilot should even happen.
The estimated expense of each “deployment” of city crews to clear snow under the pilot would have been about $50,000, city officials said Friday. That would fluctuate depending on the amount of snowfall, weather conditions and if city employees would have to be paid overtime.
Northwest Side Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th), who voted against the measure, suggested individual alderpeople instead partner with community organizations in their wards to assist neighbors who need help shoveling.
“The purpose of this pilot is to test something out, to see if it’s scalable for the city at large, and we are all up against a budget that is going to have a deficit of over $1.2 billion,” Nugent said. “This would really be a huge unfunded mandate for the city of Chicago and our residents.”
Other alderpeople also raised concerns about the potential for lawsuits from neighbors who slip on a sidewalk within the pilot zone, and whether the city would be liable for damages.
“To kind of soft pedal the fact that if we start plowing, we may or may not be responsible or liable for an injury — we definitely will,” said Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd). “We’ve seen an increase of trip and fall cases that we have become responsible for to the tune of millions of dollars over the last several years.”
Speaking after the meeting, members of transit advocacy organization Better Streets Chicago said many of the critiques levied at the pilot on Friday were made in “bad faith.” They stressed that the limited program was simply a chance to try out something new that could help people across the city.
“We weren’t asking for the sky. We were asking for two 1.5-square-mile pilot zones, just to see what was possible,” said group director Kyle Lucas. “I think that a lot of alderpeople today made it very clear that they were a lot more concerned about the city’s liability versus actually creating an accessible city.”
Alex Nelson, a strategy adviser with Better Streets, said Friday’s defeat reflected an inability of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration “to live up to the promises they made.”
Johnson has previously supported Plow the Sidewalks, although advocates said they felt like he has mostly abandoned the issue.
Still, they haven’t totally admitted defeat.
“I hope that this is a conversation we’ll be able to revisit down the road when the snow hits and people realize that their elected representatives are the reasons that there is no snow clearance in their zones and in their wards,” Nelson said.
Source: Block Club Chicago
