Snow piling up at city storage yards

City crews are back on residential roads for round two of clearing snow down to bare pavement.

To make the process go as smoothly as possible, the city is urging residents to avoid parking along the street.

"I'd say it's going to eliminate on-street parking," said Bob Dunford, director of roadway maintanence.

"I would suggest to people that if they do wish to park on the street they might have to look at moving and clearing themselves a spot."

But while residents can expect to see bare pavement in the coming days, large windrows are also anticipated for those cleared neighbourhoods.

Residents living in cul de sacs are being warned about expected traffic problems due to those windrows.

"We're stacking in the centre of the cul de sac and they are going to be an issue just for traffic movement," he said.

During an average winter season, the city's crews generally clear around 800,000 cubic metres of snow from main routes.

The city is calling this season's volume of snowfall "unusual" as numbers show between October 2010 and Jan. 18 alone, the city has brought in over 900,000 cubic metres of snow.

Snow taken off city streets is collected at one of three city snow storage facilities. The city estimates that snow at the north Edmonton facility is already piled 25 metres high, and that number is expected to increase.

Dunford says that by the end of this winter, crews will likely have removed more snow from city streets since the winter of 1994.

It's expected to take about two weeks to clear all residential streets down to bare pavement, barring any major changes in the weather.

Dunford says windrows in key neighbourhoods around schools and senior homes get highest priority for crews.