WATCH: While snow has been cleared from the major routes, it continues to be slow-going because of icy patches. Vinesh Pratap reports.
EDMONTON – The city expects it will come in roughly $10 million over budget for 2014 snow removal. The 2014 snow removal budget is $54 million.
“We’re projecting we’re going to be over budget for 2014,” said director of roadway maintenance Bob Dunford, “taking into consideration that the snow budget goes from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, and if you recall we had a lot of snow removal to do in Jan., Feb, March this year.”
“We’re anticipating we’ll be as much as 10 million overspent in snow and ice control.”
The Capital Region saw its first major snowfall of the season Thursday and Friday, receiving approximately 40 cm of snow by the time flurries eased around noon Friday.
WATCH: Crews continue to clear snow from the streets and add to a massive snow pile Monday morning, as shown by the Global 1 chopper.
Roadway maintenance crews worked throughout the weekend after seeing up to 40 cm of snow over the course of a couple of days late last week. By Sunday, arterial roads had been completely plowed, but incredibly cold temperatures and hard packed ice on collector routes caused some delays.
READ MORE: Edmonton dealing with major winter storm
Ice blades had to be used over the weekend because of the extreme cold conditions which led to snow being packed down very hard. So, the city extended the seasonal parking ban into Monday.
“As soon as you get a few vehicles over it, being as cold as it was, it packed down hard, very, very hard,” said Dunford.
The delay did not impact the start of the neighbourhood blading cycle, which started midnight Monday. Click here to find out which day of the week your neighbourhood will be cleared. Residents are asked to move their vehicles off the street on their scheduled blading day.
“It’s midnight to midnight,” said Dunford. “You have to keep that in mind.”
“We started off the residential blading,” he explained. “It’s started off fairly well, again, we’re having to use ice blades an awful lot because of how cold it is the ice pack is not coming off easily.”
Edmonton’s seasonal parking ban was lifted at 3 p.m. Monday.
Officials identified 1,825 parking ban violations over two days; about 912 each day. There were 836 tickets issued on Nov. 29, 924 tickets issued on Nov. 30 and more than 200 requests for tows.
Those numbers are up from the first parking ban of last season. In November 2013, the first parking ban resulted in 1,362 tickets issued over three days – an average of 454 per day.
Edmonton’s office of traffic safety counted 210 speeding violations in school zones on Thursday, the first full day of heavy snowfall.
“Despite snow, we had 210 school zone violations on Thursday during the height of the snowstorm,” said Dennis Tetreault with the Office of Traffic Safety.
He said the school zone around St. Monica School on 53 Avenue between Whitemud Drive and Riverbend Road, there were 144 violations.
“It’s worse now that the weather is bad. Your stopping distance at 50 km/h, you’re adding an extra 10-13 metres just on top of that on wet pavement, that’s not saying icy road conditions, snowy road conditions,” explained Tetreault.
“Even if you see a pedestrian, you can’t slow down enough.”
READ MORE: Snowfall amounts in Edmonton, northern Alberta
On Monday, road officials said they’ll start removing snow piled in the centre of roads, which could take a few nights to complete.
“What we do usually after a major snowfall is we do the centre stack areas, that is what we’re mandated, budgeted to do,” said Dunford.
The weather in the Capital Region is expected to warm up slowly over the course of the week, even possibly reaching a high of zero by Sunday.
WATCH: Alberta highways are in better shape than they were last week, but contractors (and the province) say they need help to keep them that way. Fletcher Kent explains.
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