WATCH: A full fleet of plows and salt trucks had a difficult time keeping up with the snow. Mark McAllister reports.
TORONTO – Drivers should expect to spend a touch longer than usual driving Thursday afternoon as snow is expected to still be falling when rush hour begins.
Environment Canada warns up to 20 centimetres might have blanketed the region by the time the evening rush hour ends. A snowfall warning for up to 20 centimetres of snow in the GTA was cancelled shortly after 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
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Areas along the Highway 400 corridor got the heaviest dumping of snow with up to 25 centimetres of snow in some places.
Kingston to the Ottawa area and also the Niagara region can expect up to 15 cm.
Patricia Messina said the roads Thursday morning “were not plowed at all.”
“They were just starting to plow. So I have no idea where they were. They said that the plows were on the roads but we saw no sight of them,” she said during an interview.
But despite that, municipal and provincial officials are confident road crews did the best they could with the available resources.
Transportation Minister Stephen Del Duca said the plows and salters were out and Toronto Mayor John Tory said all available resources were being used.
“There’s certainly no suggestion that people aren’t working hard. I think our public servants and others who help us with it are working hard and these storms are never easy to get through and it’s never perfect but I think they’ve done a reasonable job today and hopefully it stops snowing so that they can get it all cleaned,” Tory said.
Trevor Tenn, the acting director of the city’s Transportation Services division in Scarborough said the city started deploying salting trucks shortly after 1 a.m., with plows hitting the road at roughly 4:30 a.m.
He said they’re using all 600 trucks and deployed sidewalk tractors Thursday afternoon.
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The weather office says gusty northerly winds moving in with the system could reduce visibility.
Motorists are being reminded to use caution on the roads and to keep a safe distance between vehicles.
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The CAA South Central Ontario reported 3,300 calls for service by 3p.m. Toronto Police Constable Clint Stibbe tweeted Thursday morning that police were receiving a call for a collision every 3.5 minutes with 119 reported since 5 a.m.
Air travelers are being told to check their flight status prior to heading to the airport but as of 11 a.m. only 39 departing flights had been cancelled at Pearson International Airport.
Air Canada has advised its passengers of cancellations and further delays for flights coming in and out of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
Porter Airlines issued an advisory to passengers to expect flight cancellations and delays due to “unfavourable weather” which will impact operations.
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