The City of Edmonton has announced its plans for keeping the roads safe over the 2019-2020 winter season, following the recent decision from city council to halt the use of controversial anti-icing agent calcium chloride.
For this season, the city says it will use a combination of plows and graders, along with salt and sand to clear the roadways.
However, calcium chloride will still be used as an anti-icing brine on sidewalks, bike lanes and paths.
Crews will also be using the brine to wet the sand and salt before they are applied to roads — a method that’s been used for decades — which, the city says, helps adhere them.
“The brine solution has been used within the city for the last 30 years. It just helps to activate the sand and salt,” said Andrew Grant, the city’s general supervisor for infrastructure operations.
“We’ll definitely be plowing a lot more,” Grant said.
The city had previously estimated that using calcium chloride on the roads had led to a savings of $4.3 million in 2018.
Councillors were told that costs would likely go up when they made the decision in early October to stop use of the brine directly on roads.
“It all depends on the weather and what Mother Nature throws at us,” Grant said.
“We’re going to have to look at a lot of the monitoring and testing that our city council has asked us to continue throughout the winter season.
“We’ll be analyzing that throughout the winter to see if we do see any changes [in cost].”
Grant said the report will be delivered to city council next June.
Around 500 field staff and 130 plows make up the city’s winter road maintenance team, and when a snowfall occurs, they work using a hierarchy that prioritizes busier parts of the city such as freeways, roads within the designated business improvement areas, and transit routes.
The city can also call in contracted help, which would add up to an additional 300 road graders and 260 dump trucks to assist in the clearing.
Lower-priority roads, like residential streets and alleys, are cleared within five days of the end of a snowfall.
Grant said it depends on weather as to how much the city relies on its salt and sand products, but the lack of calcium chloride will generally mean more work for truck crews.
“This year we’ll just have to get out there and plow.
“If it’s freezing rain and there isn’t any accumulation on the roads, obviously plowing isn’t going to work and we’ll look at using salt product,” he said.
“If its a -40C cold snap like we saw last year, we’ll be relying on our sand mixes to support a safe and reliable network.”
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