People with mobility issues struggle to navigate sidewalks as cities rush to clear snow
CBC
When Liisa Nisula left her home in east Toronto for a medical appointment, the snow-covered sidewalks were so impassable for her walker that she was forced to go out into the street.
"I was using the road and like preparing myself to have an altercation with drivers," she said.
It got easier once she made it by transit to St. Michael's Hospital in the downtown core.
"This looks pretty good," the 66-year-old said, glancing at the plowed sidewalk on one of Toronto's main streets — a sharp contrast to the mounds of snow with narrow, slippery footpaths cutting through them on other sidewalks nearby.
"I was kind of expecting it to be good because it's a hospital," she said.
A couple of blocks away, Neil Thomas stood in the snow and slush piled on the corner of a side street.
The 62-year-old, who is temporarily homeless and staying at a shelter, said making his way on foot with his walking stick was "very rough."
It can be especially treacherous "if you don't have the proper bottom on your stick (for traction)," Thomas said.
"Luckily I just had shoes given to me that fit right and have a very good grip on them," he said, noting that he was on his way to the hospital's fracture clinic for a checkup after slipping on ice and breaking his shoulder three weeks ago.
In Montreal, 58-year-old MaryAnn Davis has been stuck in her home since last Saturday, unable to get to her volunteer position in palliative care.
"The thing is that they haven't done the sidewalks," she said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening.
"I've developed balance problems and I can't walk if the ground is uneven — even with a cane."
Back-to-back snowstorms in the last week dumped record amounts of snow in Ontario and Quebec, wreaking havoc on roads, sidewalks and driveways. The city of Toronto says it will be three weeks before the snow is fully cleared and a spokesperson for the city of Montreal said Wednesday it will take at least a week there.
Barbara Gray, Toronto's general manager of transportation services, said in an interview on Wednesday that the city is "very concerned about accessibility" and is prioritizing calls to its 311 customer service line from people — including those with disabilities and seniors — having difficulty getting around.
Current and former members of Laurentian University’s staff and faculty unions will receive cheques in the new year after paying into a retiree health benefits plan that the university spent on its operational and capital budgets instead.
Shopping local may be the desire, but affordability might decide where shoppers spend their money this Christmas season.
As classes across New Brunswick pause for the holidays, it’s not yet clear which schools are making a dent in chronic absenteeism — a stubborn post-pandemic trend that mostly afflicts the high school cohort, especially in the Anglophone West school district.
CBC Quebec has launched its Make the Season Kind campaign. It's our annual campaign that focuses on food insecurity, while also celebrating kindness, generosity and community spirit around the province.
Premier Wab Kinew says Manitoba will hold a public inquiry as soon as 2026 into the former Progressive Conservative government’s post-election efforts to approve an environmental licence for sand-mining company Sio Silica.
Premier Scott Moe has led the Saskatchewan Party through two straight elections, winning majority governments each time.
Eight weeks after adding a GM BrightDrop van to the fleet of his plumbing and heating business, Marty Salliss has no complaints, only praise.
Nearly half of Alberta’s Grade 6 students failed the provincewide math test in 2024, three years after the province started rolling out its new elementary school curriculum.
Toronto could get new cars on the road whose drivers will never get frustrated by gridlock — because the cars would be driving themselves.
Amidst a cost-of-living crisis, some London-area organizations say they have noticed a decline in donations this holiday season.
Prominent northern leaders have been touting the Arctic economic and security corridor as a "nation-building" project that will bring economic benefits to the two territories it straddles, but others are split on how much good will come out of it.
When the federal government tabled its 2025 budget last month, it included a proposal that tax fraud experts say is long overdue — if also a belated acknowledgement that the Canada Revenue Agency has been repeatedly duped into paying out untold millions in bogus tax refunds to scammers.
Talking with an AI chatbot can successfully convince people to change their votes and could affect the outcome of future elections, according to a new study.