[palmotea]

> Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt.

Rigorously considering second-order (and greater) effects is a massive undertaking, though. Like: how do you even know how many more people will slip and get hurt without salting sidewalks and how much the damage the salt does to "plants and ground water," without many careful and expensive research projects? And then there's the challenge of weighing such completely disparate things: how many injuries are healthier plants worth?

Basically is seems easier said than done.

[Xylakant]

The problem is not salting or not - the problem is that the house owners are liable for cleaning the sidewalk and they all outsourced it to the same companies. And the companies unsurprisingly all fail to deliver on their obligations because they take on way more customers they could possibly handle. The result is as expected - nothing gets done. A shovel and broom, maybe some grit would have been enough.

But there’s no shred of enforcement and instead of calling for enforcement, politicians now call for relaxing the rules on salting.

[tharkun__]

Or maybe don't make everyone responsible for the public roadway/sidewalk in front of their house and instead have the people that are responsible for all other things public roadway/sidewalk be responsible?

Works elsewhere, why not in Germany, where taxes should actually be even better able to cover it? [yes I know people in Germany, even specifically in Berlin and no this is not a Berlin specific thing]

Like where I live, the city also says not to use salt whenever you can and use alternatives and they themselves do not salt the roads in our town either, except for the major in and out ones. This is Canada btw. so we do get a load of snow and ice. They use grit and in spring the city sends through a grit cleaning crew (for reuse next winter). Except for the parts that make it onto lawns from snow plows pushing it onto your property. There it's your job i.e. some people put down mats in fall or they use brushes to get it out of the lawn and back onto the street where it can be picked up. Just yesterday, it was above freezing and the city snow plows went and used the warmer weather to scrape lots of ice off the road!

[StanislavPetrov]

>Or maybe don't make everyone responsible for the public roadway/sidewalk in front of their house and instead have the people that are responsible for all other things public roadway/sidewalk be responsible?

Here in New York the problem is opposite. Every home and business owner is responsible for quickly clearing any walkways/sidewalks/driveways they own and are in front of their homes or businesses. New York is very litigious. As a consequence, unless someone is unable, way off the beaten path or doesn't care about getting sued for huge money, most everyone, especially businesses, made sure that their sidewalks and pathways are completely clear of snow and ice to avoid a ruinous lawsuit. On the flip side, properties owned by the county, city, town or other public entities are far more likely to be unmaintained and covered in snow and ice. In general I'm against living in an overly litigious society, but when it comes to snow and ice clearance it certainly has an impact here. This is all in spite of extremely high tax rates (property, income, sales and otherwise).

[Xylakant]

I believe enforcement would solve the problem for Berlin as well. Just hand out substantial fines to change the calculus for the home owner. At the moment, the risk/reward is favoring doing nothing, so that's what a lot of people do.

[metalman]

what is bieng nibbled at but not spoken is the fundamental conection between responsabilities and rights of citizens, and the long nasty never ending attempts to seperate and comidify them.

[Xylakant]

Funny that you would propose such a practical and simple solution. This has been proposed by the Green Party in Berlin and I’m surprised you didn’t hear the wailing choir of house owners across the Atlantic. “Too impractical”, “too costly”, “who would pay for that?”.

Thing is, the current system works well for all people except the ones that want to walk on the icy pavement. Politicians aren’t responsible. House owners shed the responsibility to a contractor. Many contractors regard this essentially as largely free money and just weigh the cost of a potential lawsuit against the accumulated income. It’s extremely good at diluting the responsibility so that no affected individual can effectively do anything about it. Why change a system that works so well for all of the people except the ones affected by the outcome?

[tharkun__]

Funny indeed. Now that you mention it, I can "hear" the complaining voices in my mind, yes :) So very German of them too!

Funny you mention cost. This year our town actually did not contract out the snow clearing of the roadways to a contractor like they've done for decades past, because it became too expensive (or rather the percentage increase I believe was the trigger). So instead the city is now doing the snow clearing themselves! I would call this very good stewardship of our property tax payments, which is what pays for that. Just now instead of going to greedy contractors (let's face it, most of that money isn't going to the people actually doing the snow clearing) and instead it will go towards paying the salaries of actual city employees (not sure how many temporary) and I guess equipment cost.

Most people here also get a local contractor or in our case it's usually one of the farms around the area, that offer snow clearing of your driveway. Both the actual driveway, which around here can be quite large, and for clearing the large amounts of snow and ice left across your driveway by the city plows clearing the roads. Essentially tractors with snow blower attachments on the back PTO. Like this: https://www.deere.ca/assets/images/region-4/products/attachm...

[cafard]

My recollection--from Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, and Washington, DC--is that in the US the property owner is generally responsible for the sidewalk.

We are wary of salt, having damaged a stretch of sidewalk in a rowhouse development by heavily salting it one winter. Others, and the city of Washington, will put down salt at the least probability of snow.

[elric]

The same liability issue exists in Belgium, with very similar results. Some people will clear the pavement in front of their homes, others won't. Some don't have the time, some don't have the ability. Some try but make it worse, by brushing aside the snow without salting a thin leftover layer can easily turn into black ice.

Our tax rate is insane. This is a responsibility/liability that should rest with the governments, but they'd never get it done.

My hot take is that the govt ought to facillitate the process, e.g. by providing salt/grit/shovels/salt spreaders, so that people at least have a realistic chance of getting it done.