A LONG-DELAYED report identifying new priorities for snow clearing and ice control within the city’s active transportation network will recommend spending nearly $1 million on changes when it finally sees the light of day in May.

The winter maintenance strategy report is now up on the City of Winnipeg’s website and will be discussed May 1 at the next standing policy committee on infrastructure renewal and public works.

Coun. Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert) originally requested the report in March 2016 when she was chairwoman of public works. After seven extensions, the public service came back with its findings.

Cheryl Anderson, the city’s acting manager of street maintenance, is the report’s main author. Her department recommends spending about $933,000 next winter on re-prioritizing roadways, sidewalks and active transportation pathways to provide a connected pedestrian and cycling winter maintenance network.

Subsequent annual spending on the re-prioritized network would be about $835,000 plus inflation, according to the report.

“Efforts have been put into place that, when new infrastructure is being planned, to recognize these future design requirements and connectivity,” Anderson wrote about what the city has been doing since it approved its transportation master plan in 2011 and adopted pedestrian and cycling strategies in 2015.

“Winter season has been an entirely different challenge, as citizens find many of these new active transportation routes disconnected or not maintained,” she said.

Many Winnipeggers were frustrated after a large snow dump in March left some people stranded in their homes due to poorly cleared sidewalks. Some people who use wheelchairs were forced to travel on city streets in order to get around.

But the public works report is about much more than fallout from a single snowstorm, said Anders Swanson, executive director