SASKATOON – The City of Saskatoon held a press conference Friday to discuss how it’s done as the winter road maintenance season comes to a close. Although spring is here, officials say crews are ready if snow returns.
In the meantime, the city is assessing how the past winter went with improvements that were made.
“We are always at the mercy of Mother Nature, but with the introduction of new pilot programs, improved services and greater efficiencies, our high-traffic roads have been in the best winter condition we’ve seen,” says Pat Hyde, the city’s director of public works.
Hyde added no two winters are the same. This year, he says the heat wave in January reduced the snow-pack on streets by as much as 60 to 70 per cent in some areas.
Get breaking National news
In 2015, Saskatoon dealt with six snow events. The city points to its use of private contractors along with an improved deployment of civic crews for surpassing its 72-hour goal.
This past winter, the average was 65 hours for grading all priority streets after a snow event.
READ MORE: CAA Sask.’s 4th annual worst roads campaign is back
The snow budget for 2015 is $8.5 million, with $4.8 million spent since Jan. 1. Hyde says administrators won’t know how the city did until the end of the year.
The city also initiated two pilot programs on high-traffic roads that resulted in savings and less overall material on roadways to be cleaned up this spring. Both involve a de-icing product called Caliber M1000, which is a magnesium chloride blend.
The city says the product was successful on Circle Drive and heard positive feedback from citizens.
Around 26,000 tonnes of sand was applied this winter compared to 36,000 tonnes last winter. For sanding, the budget is $2.5 million and the city has spent $1.5 million.
The cost of the magnesium chloride mix was roughly $90,000.
“The actual cost increase between what we were applying and what we put down this year was only about $30,000 for the magnesium chloride but we did find though with the Caliber M1000 mix is that the end product was far superior to what we’ve used in the past,” said Hyde.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.