City to deploy private contractors at start of snow-clearing work after Tuesday’s storm

The City of Edmonton has crews and contractors out clearing roads in an effort to keep up as snow blankets the region. Miriam Valdes-Carletti reports.

With Edmonton in the midst of its first significant snowfall since early January, the city says it’s learning from the last time it tackled challenging road conditions.

Mayor Andrew Knack told media on Tuesday that staff are activating external snow-clearing contractors to assist city crews before the snow stops falling, rather than waiting to see how much accumulates.

• Hourly and 7-day forecast on our CTVNewsEdmonton.ca weather hub

“Typically (city staff) want to see how much snow is coming, because the last thing you want to do is pay more money for contracts, when you could address it through city crews,” Knack explained.

Contracted equipment, which works in conjunction with city-owned plows and graders, will hit the streets at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The forecast is calling for anywhere between 15 and 30 cm of snow in the Edmonton area by the end of Tuesday night, the heaviest of which has already caused delays on central and eastern Alberta highways.

While that’s not as significant a dump as the record 54 cm of snow at the end of December, the city’s winter resources have become a popular topic amid Edmontonians’ rising frustrations with snow clearing during that time.

• Snow removal service level isn’t enough for the ‘city we have’: Knack

A citywide parking ban for major roadways goes into effect Wednesday morning, meaning cars will once again be prohibited from parking in certain areas as those plows and graders work their way from high priority to lower priority roads, which must be cleared within five days.

The city’s snow and ice removal supervisor Val Dacyk told media on Tuesday that on top of its 120 internal truck plows, the city is deploying its 20 city-owned graders and has contracted for 100 pieces of additional equipment from other companies.

Neither Knack nor Dacyk commented on the current state of the city budget for snow clearing, which allots $67 million to the task each year.

• What does it cost to clear Edmonton snow?

But between extra and early manpower, the city anticipates operations will speed up to 24 hours ahead of what Edmontonians saw last time they were in dire need of snow clearing.

“(Crews) are working 24/7 just like they were last time,” she said. “This time, the predicted weather forecast was actually for more than what we’re seeing fall out there. That’s always the direction we want when we see heavy weather forecasts.”

Dacyk said drivers will see major roadways cleared or in the process of being cleared by rush hour traffic Wednesday morning and see many roads ready for use “very quickly” after that time.

As for parking bans and ticketing, Knack said Tuesday he doesn’t anticipate enforcement to ramp up this time around, as nothing has changed as far as funding bylaw officers for the task. That, however, will change next winter during the new budget process, he said.

Dacyk also added that compliance tends to be better among Edmontonians for a Phase 1 parking ban and crews reported a “great improvement” in compliance near the end of January’s Phase 2 residential parking ban, which had previously seen low participation.

“As always, we just ask for residents to have patience and give our crews room to work,” Dacyk said. “We want to get those roads clear and ready for use as soon as possible.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti