Did you know, if you live in the City of Buffalo, you’re responsible for clearing the sidewalk in front your property from snow and ice?
Removal must be completed by 9 a.m. the day after snow or ice has fallen or accumulated according to the city charter – a document akin to a city constitution. City inspectors can even issue offending property owners with an official order to clear abutting sidewalks of snow and ice - known as an “order to remedy” - or hand out a fine of $100.
But BTPM NPR found that enforcement does not always work, and snowy sidewalks continue to be a challenge in one of the snowiest cities in the country.
We analyzed snow-related complaints by residents to the City of Buffalo’s 311 Call and Resolution Center, along with the number of snow-related "orders to remedy" or fines (which we are grouping and calling violations) issued by city inspectors over the last five winters, starting winter 2020-2021 and ending winter 2024-2025. We used the city’s own data, downloaded from the Open Data website. Here’s what we found:
Takeaways
- There were 2,200 total complaints made to the city’s 311 Call & Resolution Center requesting a snow removal inspection over the last five winters. The city reported issuing 669 snow-related violations in the same timeframe, mostly for failure to clear sidewalks of snow and ice
- The Elmwood-Bidwell neighborhood had the most snow-related complaints with 228 total - that’s a little over 10% of all snow-related complaints. But the same neighborhood had just eight violations cited by city inspectors in the same timeframe
- The city neighborhood with the most snow-related violations is Lovejoy, with 76 violations cited by city inspectors over the last five winters. That accounts for around 11% of all snow-related violations in our dataset. There were 69 snow-related complaints made about properties in the Lovejoy neighborhood during the same timeframe
- Only around 5% of snow-related complaints resulted in a violation being issued by inspectors for the same address
- Winter 2021-2022 saw the most snow-related complaints with 745 total despite being the second snowiest winter in our dataset. That accounts for a third of all snow-related complaints recorded over the last five winters. That season also saw the most violations cited by city inspectors with 187 issued citywide. That winter was the coldest by average temperature
- Colder temperatures led to more complaints, suggesting icy sidewalks cause more people to contact the city to request a snow-removal inspection
- The city street with the greatest number of complaints through a single neighborhood is Abbott Road through the South Park neighborhood, clocking in 57 snow-related complaints.
Despite the fact we have used the city’s own publicly available data, Buffalo's Commissioner of Permits and Inspections Cathy Amdur disputes the number of violations reported in the dataset and said it is much higher.
Amdur told BTPM NPR the city’s internal system logged 3,515 “snow letters” issued to property owners over the same period. She explained the letters are sent after an inspector attends the site of a snow-related complaint and confirms a snow or ice-covered sidewalk.
“That is a letter of violation specifically to address snow-related complaints,” Amdur said. “Sometimes it can be just a warning to the property owner, or it will at times have a summons [a fine] included with the letter.”
Amdur did not release the internal data when BTPM NPR requested it for this story, so we are unable to independently verify her numbers. However, the commissioner emphasized she is working with the city’s data team to release the information on the Open Data portal.
“We want transparency,” she said.
Regardless of the apparent discrepancy, one thing is clear: sidewalk snow removal is a citywide problem.
Why does it matter?
Approximately 20% of city households do not have access to a vehicle according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data. So year-round, many people get around the city by bike, on foot or by public transit, which often involves walking to a bus stop.
Slippery sidewalks pose a health risk according to Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein, especially for older adults.
“If an older adult slips or falls, they could be at risk for some major fractures of large bones, like their pelvis or femur, their leg bones because many older adults have frail bones just from normal aging process,” she said.
She added sometimes those injuries result in a long hospital stay , increasing the risk of further adverse health effects such as catching an infection.
“It could really cause a spiral in somebody's health, and so it's really something that we have to be vigilant about preventing.”
Dr. Joshua Lynch, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University at Buffalo’s School of Medicine and Medical Director at DeGraff Medical Park, agrees. But he noted he sees people from all demographics in the ER with injuries sustained after falling on icy surfaces, especially wrist fractures.
“We also see kind of mini-spikes of slips and falls outside after a particularly cold night, or when it rains and then it gets really cold. Those days are quite noticeable actually throughout the course of the winter,” Lynch said.
Solutions opposed or ignored
Over the past five winters, residents filed more than 2,000 complaints about snow-covered sidewalks, yet the city has repeatedly blocked or ignored efforts to solve the problem.
BTPM NPR has found at least 12 items filed with the Buffalo Common Council pushing for solutions to Buffalo’s sidewalk snow removal struggles. Dating from 2017 to 2024, there are policy briefs, a petition (with more than 1,200 signatures), a resolution and reports, mostly advocating for one way to fix the problem: municipal sidewalk snow removal.
Spearheading that push is Justin Booth, the director at GOBike Buffalo and chair of the Common Council’s Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Board since 2006 - a group of council-appointed citizens who act in an advisory capacity only.
For Booth, the fact one of the snowiest cities in the U.S. has failed to find a centralized way to clear sidewalks of snow is “unconscionable.”
Though the responsibility to shovel sidewalks falls to the property owner or occupant, he said fines are not the answer. Booth outlined some of the reasons the city struggles to keep sidewalks clear in the winter.
“Many people certainly are able bodied and can [shovel or use a snowblower], but not everybody is able bodied, and what support is available for maybe our elderly or disabled neighbors? And how are they getting their sidewalks removed? I think there's an issue with, of course, vacant properties. And who's responsible for those vacant properties?”
Booth and the board worked to answer some of those questions. Through his research, he discovered city residents were finding their own solutions: some block clubs purchased a community snow blower, and one neighborhood association in Parkside created a community snow shoveling group, aptly named the Snow Angels.
“But it's been a lot of one-off approaches, and there hasn't been a comprehensive effort by the city as a whole to really address the systemic challenge,” he explained.
So in 2024, the board advised the council to adopt a PILOT program for municipal sidewalk snow removal. Based on a similar model in Syracuse, the city would be responsible for clearing sidewalks with high transit usage in areas with a high concentration of households without access to a vehicle. The board advised the city to allocate $750,000 for the program and even suggested a tax structure to fund it based on a similar approach in the City of Rochester, but no money was allocated, and the council received and filed the item.
It left Booth frustrated.
“Budgets are a reflection of our values, and our city has yet to value the needs of people that don't drive,” he said.
Ryan puts sidewalk snow-removal on ice
Buffalo Mayor-elect Sean Ryan’s administration told BTPM NPR the PILOT program would have to be put on ice for even longer.
As one of four incoming deputy mayors, Ben Swanekamp will be responsible for overseeing five departments in City Hall including the Department of Public Works Parks and Streets.
He nixed the idea from the get-go.
Citing the city’s well-documented financial struggles, Swanekamp said city-led sidewalk snow removal in Buffalo would be a “luxury.”
“Given the depth of the city's financial problems, that is a many-years down the line process after we got to do a better job with overall basic removal, including getting the side streets plowed more effectively,” Swanekamp said.
Ryan did not completely rule-out the idea and said his administration would “take a look at” the PILOT program report. But for now, he said able property owners need to fulfil their duties.
“What we need to do is establish the expectation, and that is, the property owners have to clear their sidewalk, and we have to establish a culture around that,” Ryan said.
Data analysis and maps by Andrew Bailey.
How we did it: Both the city code violation data and the 311 service request data can be found on the city's Open Data website. BTPM NPR analyzed snow related violations and snow related service requests to the Department of Permit & Inspections for the past five winter seasons: between November 1 and March 31, starting in November 2020 and ending March 2025.
