After posting my blog on December 20, 2010, It now falls to Mathieu Fleury, the resident received the following response to her enquiry:

Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 2:06 PM

Subject: RE: two dead end lanes east and west of Marlborough off of Mann

Ms.  Archer asked why the lanes east and west of Marlborough and north of Mann appear to be similar but that one is City Maintained and the other is not.

Both lanes are in the Wards 12 (former Ward 5) and both short dead ended lanes were originally identified as being Use Class 3 and 5 lanes on Appendix “B” unmaintained .  Only those lanes that conform to Use Classifications of 1, 2 and 3 were maintained and identified as being Appendix “A” lanes.  The Use Classifications follow:

1              Lanes which provide sole vehicular access to property fronting on the lane.

2              Lanes which provide direct pedestrian and/or vehicular access to and from residential communities, recreational areas, bus routes, schools, churches and other public uses, and as a link between dead end streets for emergency and pedestrian purposes only.

3              Lanes which provide sole vehicular access to private garages, rear yards, and commercial/industrial loading areas.

4              Lanes which provide only an alternate access to an existing property or garage or commercial/industrial loading areas.

5              Lanes on which utility services such as hydro, Bell, gas, water, sewer, etc are located.

6              Lanes consumed by abutting property owners which are not required under (1) above.

7              Other lanes which do not fall under any of the criteria above, i.e. unused, undeveloped, used for parking purposes, etc.

On January 6, 1988 City Council approved the maintenance of (150 feet)  45.7 meters northerly from Mann and located between Marlborough and Range Road.  This recommendation for maintenance approval was given as a result of June 5th, 1987 request that the lane be maintained as per the Council approved System for the Acceptance of Lanes into the Public Vehicular and Pedestrian Network (1984 Bound Minutes, Pages 5-302 to 5-338) and on 1984 October 17 (1884 Bound Minutes, Pages 22-168 to 22-170) Council approval amendment to the original report.   Since then, it is my belief that about 15 meters of lane lands were sold to the property owner of 246 Range thus reducing the maintained section of lane from 45.7 meters to the current 29 meters and created a legal dead end lane..

The 35 meter lane further to the west between Goulburn and Marlborough is not maintained.   This lane is also a dead end lane and there is no ability to drive on through or turnaround unless using private property.   It too is gravelled or hard surfaced (not by the city) and both lanes are used by three and four abutting property owners as the sole means of parking a vehicle off the street even though there are 6 abutting property owners on the maintained lane and 7 abutting the unmaintained lane.   Both lanes are dead ended by private property and it would not be realistic to believe that the City would at any time in the future consider the purchase of former lanes lands in order to extend the length of the existing lanes.

At the time of the site meeting, we also spoke of illegal parking on such lanes and the difficulty in having abutting lane users share in the cost of winter snow clearing on those lanes not city maintained.

What does the future hold?  An Urban Lanes Working Group is looking into the issue of City Lanes and it is the intent of the group to put to Committee and Council a Policy on Lanes within the Urban Core some time in 2011.  The recommendations will deal with standardization of maintenance considerations, potential releasing of municipal ownership of lane lands, how best to deal with lane encroachments as a means to make some lanes usable and how best to deal with the development of future lanes.

The status of the two lanes notes is not expected to change for now until the previously noted Committee has made its recommendations to Committee and Council.

So if I understand it correctly, nothing will change until council reviews the rules that apply to which lanes get plowed and which don’t.

As you can see from the dates provided, this issue dates back to the 1980’s.

I’ve seen the driveways and they certainly look the same to me.  The issue here is fairness.  The city either plows both lanes or plows neither.  All this process and time is beyond me.