The City of Regina has declared that a Snow Route is in effect, beginning tomorrow morning.
Effective at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, March 6 until 6 a.m. on Wednesday, March 7, there will be no parking along the below snow routes:
- Victoria Avenue between Broad Street and Winnipeg Street
- Winnipeg Street between Victoria Avenue and College Avenue
- College Avenue between Winnipeg Street and Arcola Avenue
The parking ban allows crews to plow the road making the snow ridge much smaller along the curbs, assisting with the flow of traffic along the busy roadways and ensuring that the roads are passable for emergency response vehicles.
Additionally, blue signs with a white snowflake will help identify where there is no parking during the 24-hour ban.
Any vehicles that remain parked on the snow routes during the temporary ban will be ticketed.
The Snow Route couldn’t be called into effect until the city began a systematic plow.
“We are plowing the streets and moving some of our perimeter roads to make sure they’re passable as well, and as soon as the snow stops falling we’ll move into what we call a systematic plow.” Chris Warren, the city’s winter maintenance manager explained.
Starting tonight, the city will plow streets based on priority: from priority one (main roads), to priority four; only after that will they start plowing residential streets.
“We’ll hopefully complete those, barring any extenuating circumstances in 48 hours, so by Wednesday night. The tentative plan, weather permitting, is that we’ll start residential roads Thursday,” Warren added.
The city-wide clean-up could cost up to $500,000, according to Warren. He expects it will take anywhere from a few days, to two weeks to clear the roads, including residential neighborhoods.
Already buried in snow, and with no relief in sight, some residents are taking matters into their own hands by taking snow blowers to their street
“We’re kind of low on the priority list so we look after ourselves, and each other, it’s just the neighborly thing to do,” Ron Wood, a resident in the city’s east side, said.
Wood had already cleared his driveway, and his neighbors and was working on the cul-de-sac at that point.
“It’s great having neighbors like Ron,” laughed David Kirschner. “It’s just part of life here.”
The snow also cancelled school buses for both school boards across the city, but they’re hopeful busses will be operational tomorrow.
“It’s something that we’ll monitor certainly, most likely we’ll be in much better shape tomorrow than we are today of course,” Twylla West, the communications coordinator for Regina Catholic Schools added.
As of 10:30 this morning Regina Police Service had responded to 16 collisions in the past 28 hours and many more have been left stranded.
With files from Colton Praill
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