EDMONTON – The snow continues to fall in the Capital Region, and Edmonton crews will begin blading residential roads midnight Tuesday.
Over the weekend, city bylaw enforcement officers handed out more than 1,400 tickets and towed 85 vehicles that violated the seasonal parking ban. The ban was lifted Sunday evening.
“The number of citations came as something of a surprise,” said Director of Roadway Maintanence, Bob Dunford.
“Over the last several parking bans, it appeared that compliance rates were improving,” he explained.
Could a ‘false sense of spring’ be behind the poor compliance rate?
“I’m not sure why we saw so many tickets, but we never count winter over until, well, my mark is if we make it to the end of March, I feel a lot more comfortable,” said Dunford.
City crews will begin blading neighbourhood roads at midnight Tuesday.
View the full blading schedule here.
There will not be a parking ban, but Edmontonians are being asked to move their vehicles off the roads when possible so that crews can blade from curb to curb.
- James Watson, co-discoverer of the double-helix shape of DNA, has died at age 97
- There are more than 100 autoimmune diseases, and they mostly strike women. Here’s what to know
- Recent bear attacks, close encounters prompt calls to bring back Alberta’s grizzly hunt
- PHOTO ESSAY: Coal miners with black lung fight Trump administration rollback of safety protections
Crews will blade snow on neighbourhood roads down to a level snow pack of less than 5 cm.
Get daily National news
“Trucks used for neighbourhood cycles only lower their blades down far enough to even out the ruts and ridges that have formed, and do not plow down to bare pavement,” added Dunford. “By creating a level snowpack, we are able to minimize the size of the windrows left behind.”
The city says windrows will not be removed from neighbourhoods, unless they are in front of driveways. In that case, crews will reduce those windrows so that they’re less than 30 cm high.
“We’re trying to cover a lot of residential roadways in a matter of five days. So sometimes we leave more than 30 cm and we apologize for that, and we will come back in correct that if you contact us,” explained Dunford.
Snow has been falling every day since Thursday, but is expected to taper off by midday Monday.
So far in the month of March, the city has received an above-average 30 cm of snow.
“In the middle of March, we can still get snow. I think this is extraordinary. I don’t know how much fell over these three, four days that we’ve had it, but it’s a fair bit,” added Dunford.
He said it’s still too early to say how the late wallop of winter will impact the department’s bottom line.
“March alone, we probably spent more than forecasted for March, that’s a fair assumption, but how it’ll be towards the end of the year? It’s way too early to tell.”
Nearly 200 graders, plows and trucks have been busy clearing snow from Edmonton streets Sunday and early Monday. Dunford said 78 contractors were hired to help city crews, with a total of 183 pieces of equipment on the roads.
Comments