Lots of new snow in the Pine Pass today as well. No big deal as long as you take it easy….

Don’t you dare tell people its slippery out there. We won’t be able to send the idiots in to the ditches.
Oh. Right. Idiots don’t read this. My Bad.

Snow and ice make roads slippery? Say it ain’t so!!!

We arrived home at 8:00 pm last night and there were n o slippery sections. The Hixon photo show the road as it was but the dark sectioms were bare pavement The slippery sections started within City boundries.
If the City dosent start clearing the streets soon they could have more legal problems on their hands.
Cheers

People are going to sue the city and YRB for slippery sections ? Its snowing out, better get a class action lawsuit against Mother Nature. Or maybe a class action lawsuit against Mr. Celsius for putting that darn freezing point where he did.

We should move all the major family orientated holidayz to summer time, that way everyone gets to where ever they need to go and we can have more reason to take time off in the warmer season.

After leaving the island on the 27th, we stayed the night in Cache Creek and drove home, getting into PG around 3:00PM yesterday. The only slippery raod was exactly where the article states. We were following a car (at a safe distance fortunately) who stopped to turn into the fireworks store between Quesnel and Hixon and when I braked, we slid maybe a 100 feet before the tires finally grabbed. Our car, a mid-sized sedan, is fitted with new Michelin X-Ice studless snow tires, and there was plenty of weight in the car from a return trip with all our luggage and Christmas gifts. I saw one of the pickups behind me have to move into the other lane to avoid rear-ending the truck in front of him. Retired 02, were you coming into town from another direction?
And just as a complete aside: Gas is $109.9/litre in Cache Creek, the lowest we saw.

A city the size of Montreal figures it will take them a week to clear out a twenty inch snowfall. Here in good ol’ PG it takes ten days to get “most” of the streets from a five inch one. I wonder why?

I think it comes down to resources and priorities and I suspect that Montreal places a FAR higher priority on snow removal than PG. If any of you have been to Montreal you’ll also appreciate how difficult of a task it would be to clear that much snow in a week. The sheer size of the city, the hundreds of overpasses and exchanges, the volume of traffic, the density of the downtown area, the fact that the city never sleeps, etc. Quite amazing actually. Same goes for Toronto. People laugh at how a small snowfall causes chaos, but when you go there and walk around, you’ll realize that there is really nowhere to plow it, ESPECIALLY when it’s the type of snow that compresses into concrete after moving it a foot.

With the type of snow that PG gets and the relatively simple layout of the city, there really shouldn’t be an issue with clearing the roads in a more effective manner. I think it comes down to needing more money to do the job, reallocating money to snow removal from other services and/or revisiting the strategy for snow removal. It’s probably a bit of all three to be honest.

Oh and just to drive you all completely bonkers, I had my street here in Ottawa cleared twice in a 24 hour period after we got about a foot. I know this because I had to shovel the end of my driveway out twice, LOL.

You’re lucky you’re able to be home when the grader goes by and are able to shovel your own. Imagine all the people that get home from work to find a two foot windrow of solid ice across their driveway or the little old person that can’t shovel their driveway or they grade your road at 2 am. If any city plows in their taxpayers driveway they should be clearing that windrow away as well. It’s only logical Capt Kirk.

Actually, I wasn’t at home. I did it when I got home from work along with the rest of the shovelling. I also cleared my neighbours driveway out for them since they weren’t home and it was turning to a block of ice the more it sat.
It’s funny how in a city of roughly 1,000,000 people, this never seems to be an issue. I suppose people just look out for their neighbours who may not be able to do it on their own. Perhaps that attitude doesn’t exist in PG anymore?

Oh and there are also loads of private snow removal companies here to do it for you if you wish. It’s about $300 per year from what I recall.

As an aside, I do remember having to clear the driveway in PG as a kid growing up so obviously this is service that PG residents have come to take for granted.

Actually we paid a tax increase for it many years ago. PG is a blue collar town, Ottawa is a town full of those that consume blue collar town taxes.

“PG is a blue collar town”

1) No it isn’t. Research who the primary employers are . . .
2) A town full of blue collar people would not have an issue with picking up a shovel . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-collar_worker

http://www.initiativespg.com/Relocate_And_Expand/workforce.php#demographics

Based on a rough count, I’d suggest that roughly 30% of employment in PG could qualify as “blue collar”, 45% would be “white collar” or “professional” and 25% would be attributed to “service” sectors.

I would also suggest that this tends to fit the profile of a city like PG, that is a service centre for a larger geographical area. When PG was booming in the 60’s and 70’s, there was a far higher percentage of blue collar work than there is now. Technological advancements in manufacturing and mill closures, along with a somewhat stagnant population, point to blue collar jobs being replaced by something else. Look no further than the increasing dominance of health care, education and centralized government services in PG to explain why the population hasn’t fallen off a cliff and voila, the transformation away from a blue collar town is complete.

I know PG’ers are proud of their heritage as a mill town (and they should be), but it really doesn’t hold true anymore. It’s okay, time change ;)