CALGARY – The City has promised residents they will see better than ever snow removal this year; but two weeks after the last significant snowfall, some streets have yet to see a plow and Alderman and 311 operators are hearing about it. 10 per cent of roads have yet to be cleared and those that are ploughed are facing another problem – wind rows, or a build-up of snow and ice along curbs and driveways.
Mark Haring, a resident of Thorncliffe says he’s furious with the oversight, since his son is handicapped and his bus couldn’t pull into their driveway.
“If this happens again, we’re back in the same boat again. We’re going to have to shovel it out, spend two hours cleaning up the mess they made and I am paying more money to do that – it just doesn’t make sense,” says Mark.
Sean Somers from the city’s roads department says the snowfall three weeks ago caused a huge build-up and the problems come down to simple economics.
“If we were to go in and remove snow from every inch of pavement in the City of Calgary twice a year, it would be $100-million.”
The Calgary snow and ice budget is less than a third of that – $23-million with an extra $5-million available for the residential plough program.
Alderman Andre Chabot says there’s only so much the City can do on the budget available – if Calgarians want their residential roads ploughed, they’ll have to deal with whatever comes with it.
“Its watch what you wish for – you might get it unfortunately. I’ve heard from other municipalities that have similar type problems,” says Chabot.
City Roads says the residential clearing policy is making things better. Last winter fire crews had difficulty responding to a fire in Citadel due to poor road conditions. Five homes were destroyed.
Somers says preventing a slower emergency response could be worth the extra shovelling effort for Calgarians.
“Unfortunately, that’s the reality of ploughing snow in residentials. People see maybe their car snowed in, driveway snowed in and they have to shovel out.”
The City is also hoping snow angels will help seniors and people with disabilities in case their driveways need clearing.
To help Calgarians navigate slippery streets, the City unveiled its new road conditions online map on Monday, enabling commuters to see where the graders are and what roads have been ploughed.
However, the map only shows the status of first and second priority roads and there is no information on residential streets.
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