A joint City Council committee on Friday buried an influential alderperson’s plan to launch a narrow test of sidewalk snow removal amid fears about raising costs, legal liability and political expectations.
The Committees on Transportation and Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee voted 13 to 4 vote not to go down that slippery slope, even after sidewalk snow removal champion Daniel La Spata (1st) worked with the Departments of Streets and Sanitation and Transportation to narrow the test area from four zones to two to keep the costs under the $500,000 included in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2025 budget.
The $500,000 would have been enough to clear sidewalks seven times during snowfalls of two inches or more. In-house employees and equipment owned by the city and Chicago Park District would have been used to control costs, according to Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Cole Stallard.
One zone would have been bounded by 59th, 67th, State and Racine. The other would have stretched from 43rd to 59th and California to Lawndale.
But even that limited experiment was too much for most committee members.
Staring down the barrel of a nearly $1.2 billion shortfall after two straight years of deficit spending, they argued that this is not the time for the city to take on yet another costly responsibility that could invite even more slip-and-fall lawsuits against the city.
“This comes from a really good place [but]… I don’t see how this pilot could become scale-able citywide without us placing a huge financial burden on the residents of the city and taxpayers,” said Northwest Side Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th).
La Spata, who chairs the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety, assured his colleagues that “no one is trying to put a budget ask into our 2026 budget that is already feeling less than manageable or trying to calculate the citywide cost.”
But the chairman’s argument didn’t fly with most of his colleagues.
Downtown Ald. Bill Conway (34th) said the only reason to do a test is to set the stage for sidewalk snow removal citywide. South Side Ald. David Moore (17th) said he’d rather see the city improve existing services than to take on new responsibilities that would only raise the expectations of his frustrated constituents.
Transportation Chair Greg Mitchell (7th) said assuming responsibility for sidewalk snow removal, even in two small areas of the city, could invite anyone who slips and falls on a sidewalk in those zones to sue the city.
The 13 to 4 vote is a bitter defeat for advocates for transportation and people with disabilities.
With La Spata and Economic Development Committee Chair Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) as their champions, they have waged a years-long campaign to convince Chicago to join Toronto in clearing its sidewalks at city expense for a decade.
The lack of a program means people with disabilities often become confined to their own homes during winter months, and makes it difficult for parents with young children in strollers to navigate Chicago’s slippery sidewalks.
Johnson campaigned on a promise to assume responsibility for sidewalk snow removal without saying how he would pay for the service.
Chicago politics and snow removal have been inextricably linked since the Blizzard of `79 buried then-Mayor Michael Bilandic’s political future. Ever since then, mayors and alderpersons have lived in fear of snow.
Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) remembers that history, and has warned that sidewalk snow removal is a “slippery slope.”