Public works dept says new snow clearing method is working quite well
Since the arrival of winter and the accompanying snow, Fort St. John residents have spoken out on social media, voicing their concerns that the city streets are not being plowed in a timely fashion, particularly on the so-called priority routes.
In their Snow and Ice Control report to council on January 6, public works and utilities staff explained the changes they’ve made to the snow clearing operation, and why they feel the new snow clearing procedure is better.
Past snow clearing methods used plow trucks to clear the streets, which although they enabled the city to get the roads opened in three days, they ended up blocking resident’s driveways with hard berms of snow. The windrows of snow also froze against the catch basins, which caused problems with flooding when the snow melted.
“Now it takes a little bit longer, but we don’t plug driveways, and we clear the parking lanes right to the curb so when there’s melting the water can get to the catch basins,” said Jeremy Garner, Director of Public Works.
“It takes quite a bit more time to clear the city, more than three days, and more machines, more operators, and there’s quite a bit more snow and gravel on the boulevards. But it’s not in the roadway.”
The method the city calls curb-to-curb is done intentionally so as not to block residents’ driveway, an issue that has raised vehement concerns in the past.
Garner says they don’t leave windrows on the streets for multiple days any longer, and haul away the snow in core areas overnight, while plowing arterials, collectors and transit routes before residential streets, using contractors where necessary to help with residential plowing.
It’s an evolving process, and for this winter, Garner says they have some further improvements that they’re undertaking.
These include clearing sidewalks simultaneously with the adjacent roads; designated residential areas to be cleared on designated weekdays; public notification about the current clearing category; updating category definitions; and finding ways to optimize sanding.
“We’re trialling designated residential areas to be cleared on designated weekdays, which seems to be working quite well,” he said.
Public notification hasn’t started yet, Garner said, because they wanted to trial that first.
Updating the category definitions will divide the city into categories, rather than priority areas, as Garner said priorities were “triggering”.
They’re also continuing to investigate ways to optimize sanding, which is great when you need it, but expensive to buy, place and pick up.
“We want to place that down strategically, and where it’s necessary.”
Although the city’s streets are now categorized rather than prioritized, 100 Avenue and 100 Street are Category 1, along with 112 Avenue, which provides access to the hospital.
The city uses contractors as well as city employees to clear the snow on most routes and city parking lots, as well as working with the Ministry of Transportation to clear routes such as Northern Lights Drive. Garner says it takes 2400 hours to clear 10 cm of snow from city streets.
Snow clearing in the residential areas is divided up similar to the garbage and recycling collection, on designated days of the week. However, it is still dependent on the hierarchy of the categories, so residential streets, being category 5 will be cleared last.
The categories are divided into several sub-categories, based on the days of the week, and then further divided into A and B. If Monday is your day, snow clearing will be carried out on Monday, just like garbage collection.
Monday A will be done first, with loaders. At the end of Monday, whatever’s not cleared will have to wait until the following Monday to be cleared.
“The next week, we’ll be back into those areas to pick up where we left off,” he said. “We’ve been trialling this quietly this season and it’s working quite well.”
Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Darryl Blades added that because the zones are divided into A and B, the next week when crews return to resume plowing, they start in the next sub-zone, for example, Monday B. So, it would be another week before crews return to finish Monday A.
“It’s trying to set everyone up for success. Most of our zones can’t get done in an entire day, that’s why they’re split,” Blades said.
Garner adds that it’s a great way to know what residential snow clearing is happening on which day of the week, and where they’re at. It’s intended to combat the confusion about why the snow clearing always seems to start in certain areas of town.
The report included suggestions to update the Traffic Bylaw to implement a parking ban from October 1 to April 30 on all category 1 routes – except 100 Ave and 100 Street, which would need a ban from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. – as well as a parking ban on all residential streets from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on their designated snow clearing day.
Councillor Trevor Bolin said that it would be better to have the 100th and 100th parking ban and subsequent snow clearing as an overnight shift, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
“Downtown 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. doesn’t work. As we continue to try to push growing our downtown, and businesses are extending their hours, it would be pretty hard to tell them they can’t park there, but we expect them to be open and serving customers at that time,” Bolin said.
“The way to solve the downtown is to do it at night, when nobody’s there.”
More communication from the city regarding plowing would also be helpful, so that people know when and where the snow clearing crews are operating, Councillor Gord Klassen said.
“Communication’s going to be huge to our community, if we make some of these changes,” he said. “The more communication, the more we can tell them why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
Garner said that they currently communicate through social media.
“I don’t think we can over-communicate on some of these things. I think that’s where some of the confusion and frustration comes in, when people don’t understand,” said Klassen.
When starting something new, Councillor Sarah MacDougall feels that one form of communication isn’t enough.
“Something more needs to be done.”
The map is posted online and on the city’s app, Mayor Lilia Hansen said, and residents can sign up to receive notifications when their area is going to be plowed.