Roads In And Around Prince George A Mess
Prince George- Peden Hill on highway 16 west is expected to be back in full operation within the next half hour after the hill became nearly impassable because of icy conditions.
A major accident near Decker Lake, 10 km west of Burns Lake, has closed highway 16 in both directions in what is being referred to as a major incident. Police are on the scene and no time is available when the highway will re-open and details surrounding the accident which closed the highway are not yet known.
Police are also asking motorist to stay off highway 97 south of Prince George . A heavy snowfall has made the highway very difficult to drive on . Police are asking the motoring public to stay off the section of highway 97 between Quesnel and Stoner unless absolutely necessary .
Comments
YRB, where are you?
There are a number of area’s around the City where the approach to the stop lights are on a hill. 5th and Lyon. 5th and Bypass. River Road going West to Carney St. or the Cameron St. Bridge. 1st Avenue has a stop sign for West Bound traffic that wish to turn left on Carney or right to the Cameron St. Bride. Masse and Carney St. Hill has stop lights, and I am sure there are others.
These areas need to be cleaned, and sanded immediately following, (or even during) a snow fall, because once they get slippery traffic grinds to a stand still.
Snow removal is all about priorities. Our illustrious ex Mayor Mr Kinsley went to China to attend the World Winter Mayors conferences, so one would think that we should be experts on snow removal.
Despite routing traffic down Cowart Road, they didn’t even bother to sand. The road was sheer ice and I saw more than one person who had to back down the hill because that road was not meant to handle that kind detour traffic. Stop and go traffic on a single-lane hill… Terrible, terrible idea.
Trucks spun out on Peden Hill, say it ain’t so. The worst thing the govt did was privatize highways maintenance. Contractors have turned it into a money making venture with little respect for taxpayers safety. Have a crash on the hwy and the sand trucks show up. WTF is with that? There is no excuse for any truck spinning out on Peden Hill.
“These areas need to be cleaned, and sanded immediately following, (or even during) a snow fall, because once they get slippery traffic grinds to a stand still”
Yes, yes and yes! That’s how major roads and arterials are dealt with out here. The equipment is out prepping roads before a storm and they stay on the roads until after the storm has passed. Call it “just in time” clearing if you will.
Lol I live at the bottom of Connaught Hill.
At 7:00 PM the plows were going up and back down clearing the road.
Good thing they are doing the most important routes.
If the chip trucks would use the chain on area at the bottom of Peden Hill by Costco, there would not be as many problems on the hill.
If YRB did their job like it should be done there wouldn’t be a need for a chain up area at the bottom of Peden Hill near Costco. Having to chain up to get out of town is absolutely ludicrous!
They should finish the Ospika connector, it far less steep and turn it into the truck route and no more spun out trucks, problem solved
A lack of scratch is a lack of scratch. Ospika will be no better.
Another Prince George joke show. Basic maintenance of the main roads is not rocket science. I hope all the truckers bitch to city hall!
Huh,drove Peden Hill 3 times today. An absolute non-event.
As tough as many of the roads were, I’m willing to give the city the leeway until tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what shape the roads are in come morning.
Years ago there was a major amount of snow clearing done at night, but I have seen less and less of it more recently.
“I live at the bottom of Connaught Hill.
At 7:00 PM the plows were going up and back down clearing the road.”
Because of the Xmas lights up there?
“one would think that we should be experts on snow removal”
When one has lived in a city that knows how to clear snow and does it effectively, one knows that we are not only not experts, but we are totally incompetent at snow clearing.
I thought they closed Connaught Hill in the winter.
metalman.
From Kitchener
http://www.kitchener.ca/en/livinginkitchener/SnowRemoval.asp
“The City of Kitchener is responsible for winter road maintenance including plowing, sanding and salting more than 550 kilometres of roadway.”
I think that is about the same length of roads in PG.
“The city does its best to quickly clear the snow and ice to reduce hazards to motorists and pedestrians and ACTS AS SOON AS SOON AS A STORM BEGINS. It is important to note however, that it does TAKE BETWEEN 16 AND 24 HOURS TO COMPLETE ALL SNOWPLOWING ROUTES AFTER THE SNOW HAS STOPPED FALLING.”
I think it takes more than a week in PG and then we are still battling the piles in the middle of the roads.
“No overnight parking on city streets from December 1st to March 31st.”
“Considering the large number of driveways in the city, it is too costly and time consuming to use additional personnel and equipment to perform this service. The city doesnât have the resources available to provide that level of service.”
If we are ever going to match the effectiveness of other communities to clear the roads, we need to some to our senses about clearing EVERY driveway. Provide services to those who are unable to do it themselves because of physical restrictions coupled with lack of finances to provide contracted services.
“Plows must maintain a minimum speed to move snow off to the side. However, some sidewalks are very close to the curb and it is difficult to avoid getting snow on them.”
We should get a cost for the City to clear sidewalks and determine which ones they should shovel and which ones may be appropriate for residents to shovel. This should be for natural snowfall only, not for snow dumped by the City in their snow clearing efforts.
“I thought they closed Connaught Hill in the winter.”
You are right, they do. But they also have/had a Xmas light show up there in one of their money making schemes. Not sure how much that is costing us or whether it is still going on.
I expect that the road still has to be “passable” in the case of emergencies.
And if the Chip Trucks would be using there Chains and if the Chips would be moved via Rail, maybe our Live would be saver on the Hwy. All the Mills have Rail Tracks going in
and I think I worked in all of them ! Must have to do with Money , Truck to it for less and faster, we all pay for it.
gus: (Kitchener) “The city does its best to quickly clear the snow and ice to reduce hazards to motorists and pedestrians and ACTS AS SOON AS SOON AS A STORM BEGINS. It is important to note however, that it does TAKE BETWEEN 16 AND 24 HOURS TO COMPLETE ALL SNOWPLOWING ROUTES AFTER THE SNOW HAS STOPPED FALLING.”
There are website claims and then there is reality. Often they are two different things. I’d like to hear what the actual residents have to say about which category the above falls into.
Outwest – a lot of the mills bring in chips by both rail and truck now, but their consumption is so high that rail alone can’t cover it.
Gus–PG residents approved a tax hike to pay for clearing the windrows from our driveways. So quit pointing at that as being unaffordable.
On the way into town this morning there were eight to ten full dumptrucks waiting to dump up by Gunn Park….you want to speed up snow clearing do something about this bottleneck.
gus: (Kitchener) “The city does its best to quickly clear the snow and ice to reduce hazards to motorists and pedestrians and ACTS AS SOON AS SOON AS A STORM BEGINS. It is important to note however, that it does TAKE BETWEEN 16 AND 24 HOURS TO COMPLETE ALL SNOWPLOWING ROUTES AFTER THE SNOW HAS STOPPED FALLING.”
There are website claims and then there is reality. Often they are two different things. I’d like to hear what the actual residents have to say about which category the above falls into.
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Ottawa has very similar snow clearing standards to what gus posted from Kitchener and I can say that in my experience, they do indeed meet those service standards or even exceed them.
The manner in which snow is managed here is so far superior than how they do it in PG you can’t even begin to compare the two.
Oh and I just wanted to make sure people know that I do not blame the folks running the equipment in PG. I think they do the best job they can. My old neighbour in PG actually ran equipment for the city and he worked his butt off.
I think it comes down to the process used to manage snow, and the resources that are put towards it.
NMG: “The manner in which snow is managed here is so far superior than how they do it in PG you can’t even begin to compare the two.”
In Ottawa? I would expect nothing less than top notch snow removal service in the Golden Triangle and high profile nation’s capital. Yes, I know I made that comment before and it still applies.
Yes, because tourists are all hanging out in the suburbs 25KM from Parliament, LOL ;)
In all seriousness, I’d say the effectiveness has more to do with pre-treating the roads, paying attention to weather forecasts, having crews on standby as storms are approaching, not wasting time cleaning out the ends of driveways and having enough equipment ready and deployed (often including private contractors) to clear the streets in an effective manner.
It’s also worth noting that property taxes are quite a bit higher here than in PG for what would be a similar home. You get what you pay for.
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