Winter may still seem like a long way away, but when the white stuff blankets our streets in a few months, the City will be relying on a new snow removal plan to keep roads safe and driveable.
According to the plan approved by City Council Tuesday afternoon, residential streets will not be bladed down to the bare pavement this winter.
After receiving thousands of complaints from motorists last year, Councillors decided that option not only left huge windrows for angry residents to deal with, but was also too costly and time consuming for crews.
"People will be more satisfied with that and that they appreciate the trade-off between having that than versus having larger windrows in their way for parking, and passing, and tumbling onto their sidewalks," said Councillor Don Iveson about the decision.
"We are a winter city and snow is a part of life here, so just to decide to take everything down to bare pavement, I'm not sure we'd meet those objectives, added Mayor Stephen Mandel. "So you create expectations beyond what's reasonable."
Another part of the plan includes enforcing a seasonal parking ban, which had stirred up some controversy in earlier discussions. The ban would be in place from November to March on bus routes, but only when large snow falls would be expected. Residents would then have 8 hours to move their cars from the routes to make way for snow removal crews.
With the new snow clearing plan, crews will be expected to have streets cleared within 72 hours of a large snowfall.
With files from Carole Anne Guay.
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