It may be hard to believe that 2023 forecasts are predicting an early blast of winter weather across Canada after our unusually mild start to October, but a heavier-than-usual dose of snow is indeed on its way — and people are already grumbling about how Toronto will handle it.

It's a well-known fact that the City has historically been awful at clearing sidewalks and bike lanes of snow, and it seems that come winter, we are somehow ill-equipped to handle the natural phenomenon that happens every single year and that we knew was coming.

01/19 Anger grows as #CityofTO snow clearing leaves pedestrians and cyclists in the lurch | via @blogTO https://t.co/tkrNA3m22x pic.twitter.com/t40TgyIkTL

— Transit Toronto (@transittoronto) January 20, 2022

Residents are perennially up in arms over parking lots being plowed perfectly while pedestrians and cyclists are left to navigate around mounds of the white stuff or just give up and walk on the road, and this year, people aren't expecting much to change.

So, when the City announced this week that it is "geared up" for the season with "a comprehensive and highly coordinated snow and ice response plan," the public wasn't buying it.

Well, they sure werent prepared last winter

— tdot (@aldabous1) October 17, 2023

Some on Reddit are joking that the firms who won the $1.4 billion decade-long snow removal contracts for Toronto are more likely "geared up to clean everything on the road and shove it all onto the sidewalk" more than anything else, and also geared up to "totally ignore" certain neighbourhoods.

The overall tone online seems to be one of "we'll believe it when we see it," especially after reports from Toronto's auditor general have shown that tens of millions of dollars have been lost over the years due to the mismanagement of contractors, including overpaying for work "not performed as required."

Less than half of the recommendations for improvements that the auditor general made in these reports ended up actually being implemented, according to a June 2023 winter maintenance follow-up, so perhaps we're justified in already expecting the worst.

would be nice if they shoveled my street more than once a month this time

— Happi (@happiHD) October 17, 2023

Still, officials vowed at a press conference Tuesday that they will "work smarter" this season, employing new technology and more diligent oversight of the whole process.