CALGARY- The mayor’s $1-million bid to get private companies to help plow Calgary roads has hit a snag and won’t be rolled out until next winter.
City staff announced in a report Friday that its approvals and contracting processes mean that it can’t award the bad-weather assigment to a plowing firm until May – which, even in Calgary, is usually after blizzard season.
As a short-term fix, the roads department would likely use its own equipment and staff to clear the secondary roads and residential trouble spots that are low priorities within the city’s base snow-clearing budget, which is one of Canada’s lowest for major metropolises.
"We have the funding. We want to put it to work, ease people’s commutes as much as we can," Mayor Dave Bronconnier said in an interview.
"In the longer term, though, I really do want to see a pilot program that will look at accommodation between public and private sector, all for the reasons of making it easier during severe storms to clear the roads faster and have people spending less time trying to dig out."
During last fall’s budget debates, Bronconnier proposed the trial program as a way to bolster the city’s snow attack in 2010 and 2011, using $1 million each year from the city’s fiscal reserves. Some of that money will go to paying city crews instead of private contractors when snowstorms make streets impassable, until the contract is awarded.
Bronconnier said he understands that it takes time to get a tender proposal out to private-sector bidders.
The mayor’s proposal had asked city officials to report back about his council-endorsded idea at next week’s transportation committee meeting, said Derek Heric of the city’s roads department.
The request for private-sector bids can’t actually go out until council approves it once again at a Feb. 8 meeting.
with files from Kim Guttormson
jmarkusoff@theherald.canwest.com
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