City crews are working 12-hour shifts to get main roads cleared from the weekend’s snowfall, but they won’t clear residential streets again unless the packed snow is deeper than five centimetres.
City transportation operations manager Brice Stephenson said crews will be out Monday to evaluate the snow pack in communities, but since only two more centimetres of snow is expected today, work will most likely be focused on the main roads.
Although about six centimetres of fluffy snow fell over the weekend, it is much less when it gets packed down. The wind is causing some problems with drifts, but “it’s not a major event,” Stephenson said. “On the residential streets, really we’ve had very little (complaints).”
The city had 120 pieces of equipment on the roads Monday morning, and crews were “double shifting,” or working round the clock in twelve-hour rather than eight-hour shifts to get the snow cleared quickly. So far, the city has not called in private crews, Stephenson said. They are laying down sand rather than salt because of the cold temperatures.
The city spent about $24 million on snow removal in January, about double typical January costs. Final numbers from February are not yet available, but they will also likely be higher than average, Stephenson said.
Crews have almost completed clearing away after the winter’s largest snow dumps. They still need to clear out a couple of windrows that are causing streets to narrow or restricting sight lines.
That work is continuing despite the recent snow.
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