When Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget proposal floated down to the City Council, his promise to test clearing snow for free from Chicago’s sidewalks didn’t stick.
Johnson’s budget includes no funding to pilot the city-run Plow the Sidewalks program, despite his campaign promise to enact the policy and vocal support of it in office.
The mayor’s team said the city’s daunting budget challenges made paying for it impossible in 2025, frustrating transportation and disability advocates who insist there is enough money to push ahead.
It would cost around $1 million to pilot the program by plowing sidewalks in four, 1.5-square-mile areas scattered across the city, said Laura Saltzman, transportation policy analyst at the disability advocacy nonprofit Access Living. In the context of a $17.3 billion overall budget, cutting that amount “is not going to be what keeps the city solvent,” but paying up would build trust in the often-overlooked disabled community, she added.
“It shows a commitment that you understand, even when it’s hard or even when there are trade-offs, that disabled people matter, disabled people deserve to be in society,” Saltzman said.
On the campaign trail, Johnson championed the policy backed for years by advocates, then made it the first policy he highlighted in a video celebrating his first 100 days in office.
“My question is, what is the cost to the city of Chicago when our seniors and individuals with disabilities can’t move around … because the season has changed,” Johnson said in the video.
In May, the mayor released a plan put together by over a dozen city department leaders to make Plow the Sidewalks a reality in 2025. He called the announcement “an important step forward in building a safer city where no resident is left behind.”
The report directed city departments to implement the program by the end of 2025 and budget between $1.1 million and $3.5 million for it. The one-year pilot sought to test out the free plowing program to determine if it should be implemented more widely across the city.
Johnson’s Chief Operating Officer John Roberson told the Tribune “our budget challenges” thwarted spending on the pilot. Johnson still supports the test-run idea, but because of the $938 million deficit the city is facing, “every dollar matters,” he said.
“It’s not that it’s not important. But we had to implement a 3% cut across the board … There are significant investments that the mayor wanted to continue to make,” he said. “We had to balance those aspirational things that we would like to do with making sure we had the resources to provide the services that people have come to expect.”
The mayor will have the opportunity to implement “these types of programs” when the city gets more progressive revenue, Roberson said.
“Once we are able to implement the pilot and be able to see what the scale and scope of that looks like, it will inform what a budget will look like for providing that service across the city,” he added. “Things that are delayed don’t necessarily mean denied.”
The funding delay now could push the start of plowing back to 2027 even if Johnson moves forward with it next year, because it will take time for the city to acquire necessary equipment, Saltzman said. And that scenario assumes the mayor makes the choice to implement the program and does not let the idea wither.
But dumping the plow pilot could make it harder for the mayor to get his embattled spending plan through the City Council. Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, a progressive mayoral ally, said he will not vote for a budget unless the policy gets funding.
“We’re ready. We know how to do it. We know the Chicagoans deserve it and want it. There is literally nothing stopping us from doing it besides ourselves,” said La Spata, who chairs the council’s Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee.
The city is in a “tight fiscal place,” La Spata acknowledged. But it still must act now, he added.
“It will not be easier next year. And it won’t be easier in the year after that,” he said. “We have to take the moment we’re in.”
As Johnson walks a razor’s edge to line up 26 council votes his spending plan needs, he will likely need to win over both aldermen like La Spata and others calling for spending cuts.
La Spata led the push for the ordinance calling for the pilot alongside Ald. Gil Villegas, 36th. While Villegas supports the policy, he is “laser-focused” on alleviating the burden for taxpayers in Johnson’s budget, which currently includes a proposed $150 million property tax hike.
“This is something that can once again elevate our status as a world-class city,” Villegas said of Plow the Sidewalks. “The ball is in the mayor’s court.”
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, had expected the pilot to clear sidewalks in her North Side ward. She was surprised to see no funding appear in the budget, she added.
A physical therapist who underwent two recent hip surgeries, Manaa-Hoppenworth said she knows how difficult it can be to navigate ice and snow with limited mobility. Sometimes she sees wheelchair users have to move onto Sheridan Road to keep rolling, she said during a budget hearing Wednesday. She wants to see Plow the Sidewalks in the budget this year.
“I’m very disappointed that it wasn’t added in this year’s budget, I know that a lot of advocates have pushed for this,” she told the Tribune. “And I don’t think this city centers those with disabilities enough.”
Johnson’s promise will not be kept until sidewalks start getting plowed, said Kyle Lucas, executive director of transportation advocacy group Better Streets Chicago. The planned delay puts the mayor’s future commitment to the policy in question, he said.
“We’re talking about a drop in the budget bucket,” Lucas said. “It really doesn’t amount to any meaningful cost savings.”
Lucas said sidewalk plowing “would mean freedom” for many people, like seniors, wheelchair users, blind people who use canes, parents with strollers and more.
Saltzman agreed, describing plowed sidewalks as “participation in society.”
“It is not being isolated in your home. It is getting to go to the grocery store or having your job or going to your doctor’s appointment,” she said. “It’s the difference between being able to be in the community or not.”
Tribune reporter Alice Yin contributed.
