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Bad City Planning Plus Severe Winter Weather Equals a Recipe For Disaster
Hello and welcome! So I’m aware that it is February 9th, and technically, spring is only a mere six weeks away. However, here where I live in Edmonton, Alberta Canada, we are in a period of heavy winter. Usually our snow fully melts by the end of April.
I am writing this blog on January 6th, 2026 and I experienced many frustrations on Monday the 7th as I was driving my kids back and forth to school for the day.
So first off — a little background: I have two kids in school. One in grade six who attends a full day and one in kindergarten, which is less than half a day. I take my kids to school in the morning at the same time, I pick up my daughter before lunch and then my son again in the afternoon.
Also, last summer, the city of Edmonton decided that our neighborhood (one of many I’m assuming) needed an upgrade. They are attempting this initiative to turn our city into a “walking city” where they are trying to limit the number of vehicles that are driven. They are making the roads smaller and the parks and sidewalks bigger to accommodate and push less vehicle traffic and more walking/public transportation.
They let people “vote” on this initiative in the neighborhood, but it still went through despite many people voting negatively. Not only do we now have larger sidewalks to shovel (they have doubled in size), but they also are charging us $2000 on our property taxes (per property) for just the sidewalk.
