City officials say the afternoon commute won’t be as slow as it was Friday morning, after some drivers spent more than two hours behind the wheel trying to get to work.
A special weather statement from Environment Canada was dropped around 2 p.m., but the Middlesex-London Health Unit’s cold weather alert remains in place.
Thick snow began falling across the city between 4:30 and 5 in the morning, wreaking havoc on roads particularly in the city’s west end.
“We did have our salt trucks out on route, and we added road plows to that on main roads,” explained London’s manager of transportation and roadside operations, John Parsons.
“However as it started to accumulate, we were in rush hour traffic.”
A video posted on Twitter shows slippery conditions on Oxford Street east of Hyde Park, where a person can be seen pushing a vehicle up a slow incline on the major road. A trail of vehicles can be seen behind it, struggling to get traction.
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If the salt trucks were out, how come Oxford Street was so slipperly?
“Considering the temperature, it was minus-11 or minus-12, salt does take long to react at those lower temperatures and that does add to the some of the difficulties,” explained Parsons.
“Certainly what does help when you have cold roads and snowy conditions and the salt, is traffic. Traffic helps a lot… to activate the salt and starting with some track bare sections, and eventually we’ll start to see the pavement on a lot of those main roads.”
Rob was among those who experienced delays, traveling into the city from his Byron-area home.
“Typically my commute is about 15 minutes,” he said.
“Today, it took me just under two hours to get to work. I tried numerous routes, I turned left to go east on Oxford Street, and it was backed up until Westdel Bourne.”
After trying some other options, Rob decided to embrace the delays on Riverside Drive. He arrived to work shortly before 10 a.m., after having left his home shortly past 8 a.m.
“I think the roads should be cleared well early in the morning, so that it’s not being done during rush hour traffic into work. I think that’s what the issue was.”
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