he Fixer: Mystery of the ‘monolithic sidewalk’ revealed
Published On Wed Apr 21 2010
By Jack Lakey
The Fixer
What is a “monolithic sidewalk,” and why would anyone care enough to put up signs telling people they’re walking on one?
For a couple years, we’ve occasionally noticed small red signs on utility poles that say “monolithic sidewalk begins,” which puzzled us because the sidewalk looked a lot like ones without such a serious-sounding designation.
You know, a long grey ribbon of concrete next to the curb beside the road, just like the thousands of kilometres of sidewalks across the rest of the city.
Adding to the puzzle is the white outline of what looks like a snow plow on the signs.
We were curious, but not enough to do anything about it until an email arrived from Stuart Millar saying he recently spotted the signs near Victoria Park Ave. and Gerrard St. E., and that he’d also seen green signs that say “monolithic sidewalk ends.”
“The problem is waste,” said Millar. “First, what is a monolithic sidewalk and who cares where it begins or ends? Waste, waste and more waste. Is it any wonder this city is bankrupt?”
We checked an online dictionary for the definition of monolith. The most applicable explanation was “something suggestive of a large block of stone, as in immovability, massiveness or uniformity.”
We Googled “monolithic sidewalk” and found a photo of the red sign on the urbantoronto.ca website, along with a caption describing it as “rather creepy or intimidating.” Someone else posted an explanation that it “means the sidewalk and curb are poured together, made of one blob of concrete.”
It seemed a lot of other people were also puzzled, so we got in touch with Fiona Chapman, Toronto’s manager of pedestrian projects, who surprised us by saying the signs are not intended for pedestrians, but to inform snowplow operators.
She forwarded us an email from Trevor Tenn, manager of road operations in North York, who previously held the same title in Scarborough, where the monolithic sidewalk mystery apparently began.
Sidewalks with the monolithic designation are considered too narrow to store snow pushed up onto them by plows, said Tenn’s email. The signs are meant to alert the plow driver “not to push the snow onto the sidewalk but leave it on the road, close to the curb.
“This is done by the plow operator slightly deviating out towards the centre lane to deposit the snow along the curb.”
Bottom line: The signs have more utility than some of us thought.