WATCH ABOVE: A surprise snowfall had Edmontonians digging out Saturday morning. Upwards of 15 centimetres of snow led to messy roads and vehicle rollovers. Eric Szeto reports.
EDMONTON — A City of Edmonton seasonal parking ban is over and crews have moved to neighbourhood blading.
The two day ban ended at 7 p.m. Monday after 29 vehicles were towed and 337 tickets were issued.
“The enforcement people can only get out to so many things. We still get a lot of calls from people saying that you’re not enforcing enough on my street, my area,” explained Bob Dunford, the City of Edmonton’s director of roadway maintenance.
“And that seems to be the way things go now, is that people are wanting more and more enforcement.”
City crews were playing catch-up, working around the clock to clear the roads since upwards of 15 centimetres of snow fell unexpectedly over a short period of time early Saturday morning.
“It was very short notice, we were able to switch to plowing very quickly and managed to get the extra shifts on early Saturday morning so that we could manage it,” said Dunford.
Neighbourhood blading started first thing Tuesday morning. Collector/bus routes that have already been plowed won’t be bladed.
“We are in the middle of snow pick-up on the narrow arterials at night. We started in the downtown core last night, and we’re branching out from the narrow arterials, and later this week we’ll be onto the school zones.”
Saturday’s snow, on top of the freezing rain that fell Friday night, made for difficult conditions for motorists and road crews alike.
“It’s been fairly erratic, the weather,” said Dunford. “Changing weather patterns hurt the most.
“If you get a steady temperature range it’s easier to manage. It’s just something we have to work with. That’s the way it happens in Edmonton.”
The snow made for some interesting playing conditions out at the World’s Longest Hockey Game in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The snow fell so fast the players and volunteers struggled to keep up with it, but they didn’t let it stop their game.
“Guys are on their breaks shovelling to get the snow off. Truly remarkable.”
WATCH: 15 centimetres of snow falls on the ice at Saiker’s Acres
By Saturday morning, about 112 plows were out clearing snow from Edmonton’s main arterial roadways. Contract graders were brought in later Saturday evening.
The city asked drivers to be patient and steer clear of snow removal equipment.
“We do get issues with motorists. You’ll get a group of plows and they’ll try to go between them, get hung up on the windrow, which then means everything comes to a stop until we clear the car. We always get incidents with people sliding into plows.”
For more information on bans, or to sign up for alerts, visit the City of Edmonton’s website.
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*Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015. It was updated Monday evening to include information about the seasonal parking ban ending.
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