Vine Neighborhood Residents Frustrated With Snowy Sidewalks

Many residents of the Vine Neighborhood in Kalamazoo are unhappy with the current conditions of their neighborhood and are looking for answers as to why not only the roads, but sidewalks are an icy disaster.

One resident reached out to us at Townsquare Media with issues they're facing on a daily basis as someone who regularly depends on sidewalks, which are mostly left unchecked during the winter:

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The city doesn't seem to enforce any codes about shoveling sidewalks after snow, at least nothing tangible that ever fixes the issue for pedestrians. We are lucky if half the property owners make sure their sidewalks get shoveled. The ones that don't end up with glaciers that grow all winter. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority also don't seem to worry about cleaning out any of the crosswalk ramps. I do believe that's the responsibility of the property owners on those corners.

As she continued, it seems business owners could be doing a better job keeping their sidewalks shoveled:

Business owners aren't really any better either. I have photos in front of some of those places, too. Unless you happen to live on South Street, where it looks like the city sends its sidewalk plow to take care of both north and south sidewalks.

She's also got some strong gripes against the city and their plowing of the Vine Neighborhood:

As far as plowing goes,  the city plows don't ever really seem to get those cleared in any kind of reasonable amount of time, or even all the way cleared.  Drivers either have to park halfway up a mini snow and ice mountain,  or hang out in the traffic lanes.

She claims this year, Vine residents are faced with a new problem:

NO leaf pickups happened in our area so its a giant leafy, icy mess.  They like to ticket people for not alternating parking on the streets that require it, but don't take advantage of the empty lanes to clean things up.