My office has been busy all week responding to emails and calls about the massive amount of snow that fell on Calgary during the Christmas break.
Calgary Roads, which manages snow removal are still working hard to clean streets. If you have a problem street, you can call 311 or my email my office at ward04@calgary.ca. I ask for patience as this has been a massive amount of snow for the City to handle, and they are moving into communities to clear snow now.
I know this has been a frustrating time, but we are getting there, and thankfully the weather has been on our side so far. I want to thank everyone who has been cleaning their sidewalks, and their neighbors in need. There are many who need help clearing the snow, and neighbors helping each other is why our Snow Angel program started.
I have been pushing the city to deal with the snow that gets pushed into peoples driveways, as many of you can attest, it is a frustrating experience cleaning it up after. Especially if frozen, making a plastic shovel useless. I have suggested use the likes of Snow Gate on our equipment, and will push for this to be added to our cities snow fleet. Here is a link to what I am talking about.
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The snowstorm we had was equivalent to 5-10 snow events in one day, and brought 27% of our average amount of yearly snow in one event. As of last week the bill to clean it all was already at $1.02M. Material Usage: 1,694 tonnes of salt, 1,632 tonnes of pickle and 0 litres of calcium chloride. Our 311 team, which works with our snow cleaning crew received 2,094 calls. There were 70 sanders, and 31 graders that were in service 24/7. The event also played havoc with our transit system with 318 of our 422 busses being stuck and needing assistance. The focus on P1 and P2 is to keep traffic moving, but to keep transit moving well, and to ensure 911 can respond fast.
The City has 4 priority routes, with major roads like Crowchild Trail, and Memorial Drive etc, being priority 1st, with residential feeder streets at the end. I have had requests to plow back alleys, the City will not plow them. Deerfoot is the Provinces responsibility. For a update on what is happening you can visit: https://maps.calgary.ca/RoadConditions/
P1: Roadways 4,048 lane km; Sidewalks, Pathways and Stairs – 617 km sidewalks, 429 km of pathways; Cycle Track – 9.2km
P2: Roadways – 3,211 km; Bike Lanes – 415 km
P3 & P4: Community streets 9,083km
The City also focuses on different routes over others on the time scale.
Day 1: Priority 1 – major roads, cycle tracks, LRT Platforms, City sidewalks/pathways. This is 20,000 cars a day.
Day 2: Priority 2 – bus routes/bike lanes, intersections /crosswalks) are completed. This is 5,000 – 19,999 cars a day.
Days 3-7: Priority 3/4 – collector routes/playground zones/designated hills, bus pads.
Residential streets are not covered in a regular snow event. They will be flat bladed or graded.
If you want to see a good infographic of what the City does in a snow storm, and what the plan of action is for clean up. Click here: SNOW Infographic
