CALGARY- Ward 3’s Jim Stevenson has been vocal about wanting changes to the city’s snow clearing efforts ever since the December blizzard hit, and he has good reason.
On Monday, he showed up at a council meeting in a wheelchair—the result of breaking his leg while trying to shovel snow.
Residents in his northeast riding were snowed in for days, after huge drifts accumulated in their neighbourhoods and they couldn’t drive out. He, along with fellow councillor Ray Jones have been flooded with calls ever since.
“Two thousands calls in 10 days is considerable, considering what people are going through,” says Jones. “The idea of the snow and ice policy is to minimize economic loss to the community, and economic loss is people stuck in their house for five to seven days.”
City council spent Monday asking if there are changes that can be made to the snow policy, which sees crews focus on clearing priority one routes before moving onto secondary roads like residential streets.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi says the plan simply doesn’t work.
“We have to start working on really impassable areas prior to completing priority roads across the whole city, and thinking about how to focus our efforts when we get to the residential roads,” he said.
The city says it has hired more contractors and equipment, to deal with the most recent snowfall.
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