The problem with this is that the snow is measured at the airport and there are parts of town that can receive double or even triple the amount that falls there at times.

Last year we could not make it to a house on the Hart to visit family not because we did not have good winter tires, they were brand new, but because the front of the car was actually plowing snow up to the rad opening. Guess it will be the truck this year if there is even a hint of snow!

Totally my pet peeve!! How can people on council that have lived in PG for many years pretend they do not know that the Hart Gets a ton more snow then the AIRPORT. They already save a ton of money using the false snow depth gauge at the airport to tell them when to plow the streets up here in the Hart. 12cm at the airport?? Want to guess how much that equals in the HART.

Maybe they could save money by not having the plow trucks out on the clear road days in the spring, driving around with the plow up LOOKING for snow?? Never understood that one.

No what needs to be done is revamp the system to place snow removal units in areas based on snow accumulation. The heavy areas get more equipment as it is needed and the areas with little accumulation gets less units. Why have 4 trucks plowing a skiff of snow downtown and leave the people that need to get downtown to work stuck in streets up in the Hart.

Figure out the accumulations in different parts of the city and divide the assets up according to that.

My good, instead they will raise snow removal budget and lower service level.

Of course I have a big tractor.
I would way rather clear 6″ of snow twice than 12″ of snow that is half frozen and rutted up.
This is a pretty stupid idea if you ask me.
Gee, if you wait till spring it will clear itself.
Idiots.

It’s all a small matter of safety. Every time the raise the snowfall needed before they begin clearing the snow the city is putting money ahead of safety. There is no way to see this as a good thing. More snow makes the roads and sidewalks less safe for travel but the city doesn’t care about us. They just want us to keep paying taxes and shut up.

Judging snow by its depth is not the answer either. What if it snows 9 cm. of ugly heavy wet snow and then cools off the very next day? Are they going to sit idly by and leave it to freeze in a big mess?
Winter is as unpredictable as snow removal. As long as the person in charge of the crews have the sense to know when to stay or go would definately be the best cost saving tool yet.

How much does it cost to plowed a completely bare street? Twice last winter the city ran the graders down my street when if was completely bare.

“According to the staff report, adding that extra 20 millimetres (2 centimetres or 3/4 of an inch) of tolerance before sending out the plows for all other streets, will save about $180 thousand dollars.”

We need a reality check on that.

How many more accidents will there be and how many more undercarriages ripped off cars when the accumulated wet snow turns to ice?

You see, there has to be another side of the ledger. If they do not clear snow at all, we know the savings in snowplowing will be in the millions.

BUT, what are the costs to others?

They are idiots!!!! But we are starting to know that.

When the accumulated snowfall exceeds 3.93 inches the City will then send out the snowplows, however the question is. Where will they send them and when will they get there.

I think it is a fair statement that the cannot get all City streets paved in one day, in fact I doubt if they can do it in three or four days. So if it continues to snow some areas are going to be snowed in.

In addition they have a policy of plowing those areas that require garbage pick up a day or two before pick up. So some snowplows will be off in garbage pick up areas, rather than plowing those areas that have in excess of 3.93 inches of snow, and have not been plowed.

Seems we have a bigger problem here that it appears. The savings of $180,000.00 is probably a proposal put forward to show that the City is watching their costs, while in fact it will have little or no bearing on the overall City expenditures.

We need better utilization of Manager, and Staff time, better utilization of equipment, and better planning.

Having been in the snow clearing business I can tell you that it does not save money to let the snow build up. It takes more time to clear snow that have been packed down than to get at when it snows. Why do you think parking lots clear when it snows, they have to pay to have it cleared each time and they have found that it is cheaper to do it right away.

As for going by the Airport, we had a blizzard a few years ago and there was a good 8-12cm in same areas, yet according to the Airport 0cm. The reason – Airport is open and the snow just did not land.

This is an utterly sad joke.

I’m a driver for a local business, and can attest that the snow removal policies they had before this were pathetic.

This just makes a bad situation worse.

I’ve driven the roads here for the better part of 12 years, and city council keeps on getting it wrong.

It’s like their REAL policy is “pray we don’t get snow”.

Those of you who live in College Heights and the Hart already know how bad the service up there is.

Parts of downtown are just as bad.

We don’t have a City Council, we have a bunch of clueless bean counters who haven’t grasped the obvious: when you live in the north, snow happens, and it happens a lot.

“Airport is open and the snow just did not land.”

LOL ….. if that is the case, where are the snow fences ..?

Did the planes land? ;-)

There are such things as snow squalls …. snows here …. but not there.

It seems we all agree that we need a better performance when it comes to clearing snow in the Prince George area.

Now. This is the interesting point. What will City Council do to-night. Will they go for the $180,000.00 savings, or will they direct Management to do a better job with snow clearing with the assets they have available.??

PS. Remember the meetings in China, that Mayor Kinsley attended. The were meetings for Winter Cities, and the agenda was about snow removal. We were supposedly experts on the subject. Hmmmmmm.

To the Prince George councillors, you can save more money by telling your operators to stop plowing my street when there is nothing to plow. I have lived in my home now for over five years and have seen this happen every winter one day last year I saw the plow truck plow the road four times within a few hours when there was no snow to plow. I have called to complain several times only to be told the message would be passed along and when I asked ( after my third call) to be called back they didn’t even call.

For the climate we have, we are sure awful at snow removal. If we’re not ignoring neighborhoods and letting the snow build up, we’re scraping near dry pavement.

This is not rocket science, why do we have to make it so hard?

This is a safety issue. “They” decided to let the grass grow a bit longer in parks before mowing, and it looks awful, but it is not a safety issue.
The snow plowing is. How much snow needs to accumulate in the Hart before an ambulance can’t get in? Maybe “they” should move the snow meter up there?
Perhaps “they” need not widen my residential street a couple times a winter? The narrower street slows people down, which is not a bad thing. I can drive on Westwood a couple days after a big snow fall, and it’s unplowed, and in awful shape, however, my street is all plowed up and pretty? Why?

I don’t mind the current snow plowing conditions, or at least where I am residing. I generally think the city does a reasonable job.

However, I have been into subdivisions where it seems to be pretty deep and mushy with lots of snow for a long time. Snow fall after snow fall. Mainly because they don’t have enough time to get to it.

We don’t get much of tornado’s, huricanes, earthquakes, poisonous insects, avalanches, major flooding. If all we got complain about is snow plowing and potholes, seriously we need to do a bit of sucking up, buttercup.

Is that before or after the traffic compacts the snow??

You can cave more Money by cutting the Wages of your top Administrators , or even better cut some of them out!

“SAVE” not cave

A few years ago for almost any measurable amount of snow a plow truck would come by and clean the street. It is a fairly short street so would both sides done in a minute or two. Most winters a grader and loader would be out only once to widen road and clear driveways.

Now that the city is letting snow accumulate the grader was out three times last winter with not one but two loaders cleaning up behind. It took the better part of a day to scrape down to pavement, clean all the driveways and pile the snow on corners for better visibility on one small street! Given this I do not see where the savings will come from especially if there is going to be more packed snow on the roads.

Should be great business for the truck dealers and tire shops. Everyone will now need a 4×4 and snow tires. How thoughtful of city council to consider the wants and needs of small business.
Just pay back for Stolz not getting his dike.

The reason that you see graders and equipment running around in the spring is they have to eat up their budgets or they get them cut back the following year. What they need is a mechanism basing budgetary requirements for snow removal solely based on amounts of snow historically also taking into account local issues where it snows more. We don’t live at the airport so the amount of snow that is received up there should not be taken into account. If we get away with a good year of less snow or if by sound management principles there is money left in the budget, don’t send the gear out to plow bare pavement. Keep the money in the budget for the following year. If there is a municipal bylaw not allowing that, dump it back into the reserve. Spending a budget in order to maintain a similar number next time around is wasteful. I like the idea of positioning assets closer to the areas where they are needed most. There should be a public works presence up on the Hart. Last point is looking at the equipment used to remove snow. Are graders and big trucks the only way to move snow?

Does anyone here do political cartoons? I envision a picture of Mayor Green standing in a blizzard beside the snow gauge with an umbrella covering both her and the gauge saying “no, we dont need to plow yet”

PGguy, I don’t think that statement holds water. Snow removal is from Jan 1, to Dec 31. Meaning I cant see them wanting to pilfer away the budget in March, not knowing what is going to happen in November,December.

In the last two weeks of September and the first two weeks of Oct. I’m sure that the City cut the grass at Massich Place at least three if not four times. I suggest that one cut at the end of September would have been sufficient.

It appears that a lot of the grass cutting and snow clearing is either.

A. To spend the budget money as noted above. or,

B. To keep staff busy as opposed to having them sit around doing nothing and getting paid. Doing nothing and getting paid, would be cheaper, than burning fuel, and wearing out machinery for no useful purpose.

Plowing in this town is the worst. Last year there were two instances where there were 3 snowfalls in between plows. Then when they did plow they blocked our driveway and we couldn’t leave to go to work for almost an hour before the dozer came by to remove the snow from the bottom of the driveway.

who does the city hire for snow removal along side with their crew in town? anyone know ?

I think the problem with keeping the city’s outside workers busy doing productive work in the shoulder seasons lies at the feet of the department managers.

It is easier to send the crew out to beat the last blade of grass or snowflake into submission than find them gainful work that they could do within the confines of their contracts. They should have a list of work that can be started or stopped fairly quickly if the snow starts. Things like painting, minor repairs, blade sharpening, change cutting edges, repair tire chains,wash city equipment and vehicles,etc,etc.

gus, our standards are slipping. There was one storm last year where I had to wait 48 hours for the plow to go down my street for the THIRD time to clean up that last 2-3CM of snow and the ridges from the first two passes. Heck, I think even the sidewalks were probably cleaned and salted before that third pass.

Why do I even pay taxes? Ridiculous, LOL!!!!

I wish I could dig up the radio commercials I heard during the last election. I could have sworn our new mayor said she never has, nor would she ever considering reducing service for snow clearing. LOL

Try living on the Hart…lots of snow up here..waited for more then a week and still NADA.
It did get packed before they got round to it..she’s a one term wonder.

How’s this for some other standards:

– After a huge storm, operators may have to plow a street twice. If the City waits too long before plowing again, the road will be more difficult to navigate. Sometimes a grader or dump truck with front and wing plows will do a first pass, followed by a sand/salt truck, which clears a small amount of snow to make sanding/salting more effective.

– Snow banks are removed or reduced in size when they begin to restrict sightlines, travel widths, and pedestrian and cycling traffic; to relieve trapped water on the road or sidewalk; and to create storage space for future snowfalls. Banks that restrict sightlines at intersections and at pedestrian, school and railway crossings are removed within 24 hours after crews are made aware of the situation.

– The City has tested many strategies that claim to keep snow out of driveway entrances. None have been economical or effective. Other measures we have tried have also proven to be both very expensive and very slow.

– In the early winter, crews take advantage of mild overnight temperatures to remove ruts that have formed on snow-packed surfaces. This helps to keep catch basins open to avoid flooding.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen equipment on the road 5-10 minutes after it STARTED SNOWING. Main streets are also pre-treated with salt in advance of a storm so that snow accumulation is severely reduced. On the freeway you’ll often see trucks two or three abreast blocking the entire road, but the road is completely free of snow when they make their pass.

One thing that really blew me away was the cutting down of the snow banks. The equipment will position their blade parallel to the ground about 3-4 feet off the ground and take everything higher than that completely off. There is no issue with trying to see a car or pedestrian.

About the only thing they don’t do out here is clear out the end of the driveways. There are many days when I don’t like clearing out a foot and a half of snow that is the consistency of semi cured concrete, but that’s life. For the rest of the time I simply don’t worry about snow on the roads in the city, it’s a non-issue for the most part.

PG is so far behind when it comes to snow removal effectiveness that they may as well scrap their current policies and protocols and start from scratch. I honestly think the biggest barrier is that they think they are good at it, LOL. Good luck folks . . .

It’s also worth noting that it’s pointless to have a service standard if you aren’t going to follow it.

I would suggest that there is no way the City of PG meets their own services standards. In my experience thus far, I would say that the City of Ottawa exceeds theirs.

For what it’s worth:

http://ottawa.ca/en/roads

NMG: “I would suggest that there is no way the City of PG meets their own services standards. In my experience thus far, I would say that the City of Ottawa exceeds theirs.”

I would be shocked if you told me the public service in the Golden Triangle was anything less than excellent.

Why?

For what it’s worth, I was in Upstate New York driving back to Ottawa last winter and a storm blew in off of Lake Ontario and dumped about a foot of snow on the highway in about half an hour. Their equipment was out as soon as that one started as well and this is an entirely different country.

Maybe it’s as simple as just plain getting the job done instead of talking about it . . .

i love winter when they pile all the snow in the inside lanes of the major roadways in town and people still think its a 2 lane road.If the city actually cleared the road instead of moving snow around, traffic flow would be alot easier and it would appear that they are actually doing something

Increase our taxes and then reduce services, yup sounds like a recipe for re-election… NOT!