After a winter of slips and falls, city council voted Monday to bring back the community sand box program.
The sand boxes should be back in place within the next couple of weeks, Deputy City Manager Doug Jones said.
The program had been cancelled this winter to save the city $300,000.
Instead of 100 boxes available at community centres across Edmonton, the city had decided to offer sand at just five boxes, all of them at city roadway maintenance yards.
According to data from the city of Edmonton, 91 complaints of slipping and falling on sidewalks were received from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 last year.
During the same timeframe this year, the city has received 151 complaints.
Coun. Michael Walters was behind the motion to reinstate and improve the community sand box program.
“Restore the sand,” he urged his fellow councillors Monday.
Coun. Bev Esslinger wanted to know if it was possible to expand the program to communities who didn’t have sand boxes before.
Coun. Ben Henderson said the program has become even more important in the city in the last two to three years, with the increasing frequency of rain and freezing rain.
He wants to see some improvements, though, in how the city refills the boxes.
A complaint frequently heard about the sand boxes is that they were often empty.
“We need something better than we had before,” Henderson said.
Mayor Don Iveson asked if administration would look at bringing back the program this winter, as there’s still months of snow and ice ahead.