CALGARY- The city has come up with a drastic new move to get rid of the mountains of snow piled up in Calgary neighbourhoods.
Roads crews now plan to physically remove snow from communities, instead of just pushing it up against curbs as they have done for years.
“Prior to 2010 we didn’t go into residential roads. This is a really exceptional, exceptional winter,” says Ryan Jestin, director of the roads department. “Since 2011 we’ve had the policy to go to residential roads and simply do what I call ‘flat blade.’ In other words, get rid of the ruts to make sure that you can drive down them.”
He adds that the move was prompted by the fact that there is simply no where else for crews to push snow anymore, and a call has now gone out to contractors for help.
“There’s the availability of the equipment and secondly the availability of the operator. Almost all operators have equipment sitting around, but they have no operators…so it’s not as easy as snapping my fingers and saying ‘I want hundreds of front end loaders.’”
Jestin expects it to take two or three weeks to get into every residential area. Once that is done, crews plan to clear waste and recycling lanes.
The city has released a list of the highest priority communities, with most located in the southwest and southeast. However, none of the badly-hit northeast neighbourhoods are on it. Officials say that’s because the snow is not as bad there anymore, and the most recent snow storm hit the southeast much harder than anywhere else.
-With files from Carolyn Kury de Castillo and Gary Bobrovitz
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