A Lime electric bicycle front wheel with the spokes iced up, Salt Lake City | Snow clearance issues and sustainable mobility

In past years, in November or December, I usually write a piece about "maintenance of way" issues concerning pedestrians, transit riders, and bicyclists in the winter.

-- "Snow, winter and the "Sustainable Mobility City"," 2019

I started this in 2010, although during the winter storms of February, when I was writing a bicycle and pedestrian plan for part of Baltimore County, and I was clued into the importance of "maintenance" elements, including deal with snow.

One thing to add is dealing with electric scooter and bicycle sharing programs, typically offered by for profits (and as mentioned, for profit transportation providers tend to not be well integrated into transportation planning, "Revisiting the need for comprehensive transportation planning at the metropolitan and regional scales | For profit services, and White's Ferry, Montgomery and Loudoun Counties").

I've seen a bunch of buried scooters and bikes in the wild.  By contrast the nonprofit GreenBike program, based around hubs or stations, doesn't have the same problem.

This is in the most successful neighborhood commercial district in Salt Lake City.

And like in the 2019 and earlier posts, inadequate snow removal in commercial districts remains a program.

Bike lanes.  While I think a lot of jurisdictions have improved in clearing snow from bike lanes, for those that don't, "Canadian man built this DIY e-bike snow plow to clear bike lanes," 

Sidewalk snow clearance.  More cities are taking responsibility for clearing snow from sidewalks ("More Cities Are Taking Responsibility for Clearing Sidewalks of Snow," Streetsblog).  One such is Winooski, Vermont ("Burlington loans Winooski plows to clear sidewalks after two break during Vermont snowstorm," Burlington Free Press).

Some cities like Salt Lake and even DC are taking responsibility for snow clearance from pedestrian walkways on bridges.

Utah Transit Authority Ski Bus service.  Has been severely cut back ("UTA Ski Bus service to Alta changes again," Salt Lake Tribune).  Part of the problem has been lack of drivers.  But this was exacerbated by an almost two year long hiring freeze during the pandemic.  

One additional problem, Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons are difficult to drive in during snowy conditions, and they only have five drivers rated to drive when conditions are challenging.

Separately, two ski resorts are offering a gas credit for carpoolers, to make up for the drop in bus service ("How to get $50 for carpooling up Little Cottonwood Canyon this winter," KSL-TV).

That's a different kind of winter service issue, but relevant.