City Workers Plow Through Week’s Snowfall
Prince George, B.C. – The City is circulating information on the job being done to clear this week’s nearly 20 centimetres of fresh snow from our streets.
A release from Corporate Communications Specialist Michael Kellett says since the snowfall began on Monday, City crews have cleared all of the main priority routes and are working to clear residential streets before garbage pick-up day.
Mick Jones, Supervisor of Streets Operations says as Monday was a holiday with no staff booked to work, the City “brought in personnel to plow and sand hills and intersections.” Monday’s night shift went to work on the arterial routes and that continued into Tuesday. Then Tuesday night they tackled the downtown area. The core and east end were to be completed by last night. Red zone bus routes should be completed today.
Jones says it’ll be 10-hour shifts for the rest of the week, a full overtime night shift Friday night, and a decision will be made on possibly plowing some residential areas during the weekend.
Comments
20 cm of snowfall would have been cleared by now in any city east of Winnipeg.
A simple reminder of what screws up the system in PG:
1. snowfall on weekends and holidays
2. lack of the proper mix of snowclearing equipment
3. lack of insufficient amount of snowclearing equipment.
4. lack of manpower to go along with the snowclearing equipment.
5. lack of starting early in the snowfall event to stay ahead of or with the snowfall.
I would like to know when the snowfall ended and how many hours after that the city was substantially finished clearing the snow from all streets they agreed to clear in their standards.
If that is more than say 36 to 48 hours we are not doing a good enough job and need to figure out how we will get to that standard.
Other cities manage to do it, typically for less cost per cm.lane.km than PG.
WHY??????
I want to hear the answer from the City Manager, not some corporate communications person.
When we do, we might be starting to get somewhere.
The weather network predicted the amount of snowfall we just received.
Although weather forecasts are not very reliable, the prediction is for another 8 cm or so by Friday/Saturday …. with daytime temps above freezing. So, when we will be caught up to where we should have been by now, there could possibly be more snow on the ground ….. luckily, or unluckily the new amount will not exceed the unacceptable base standard of 12.5cm on the ground before equipment starts roiling again.
Also the 12.5cm should be measured in various parts in the city and acted upon instead of using a measurement out in Blackburn.
Well I think the city and the crews did a fine job with this latest snowfall. Some streets were done quicker than normal and also some trails. Hats off to everyone….
Gaal has to make a report to Council at Monday Feb 24th Council meeting. Im sure that he wants to go into that meeting showing that they are on top of the snow plowing situation.
Hence the circulating of information on snow clearing and a somewhat better effort than was made last month.
We will have to see what his report is all about, however I doubt the report will make any difference. We need an all out investigation into our snow removal program, as it has some serious problems.
Some people get plowed four time while others do not get plowed at all. Schools, bus routes, fall behind while alleys are plowed. Some graders make three passes on one street with a front end loader clearing driveways three times, while adjacent streets don’t get plowed at all.
The policy seems to be counter productive. Perhaps we need to break the City into snow clearing areas with every area getting an equal amount of time and money spent on them.
A good snow clearing program in the middle of winter would probably stop a number of people from deciding to get the hell out of this City.
Then there is the idiot on Westgate when he does his driveway he dumps the snow on the sidewalk and road.
As usual the same old BS about clearing snow in front of the garbage pickup areas, and once again we, up on the Hart, have about 8 inches of snow on our street with no plows anywhere in sight, and today is our garbage pickup day. I am so sick of that lie that they continue to perpetuate after each snowfall. They do maybe one street in the yellow zone and say they have cleared the yellow zone for garbage pickup. Tell that to the garbage truck driver who spent 1 1/2 hours stuck on our street last year because the snow was too deep. Where we are on the Hart, we easily get 20%-30% more snow than any other part of the city, at least, and yet we won’t see any snow removal equipment upwards of 2 weeks after the last big snowfall. If we don’t get at least 6 or 8 inches here we don’t see any snow removal equipment at all.
“Then there is the idiot on Westgate” .. then take a few pictures or video of him doing it and give it to the bylaw services.
I just want to know who the genius is that sends out the sidewalk sweeper before the snowplow. Or is the sidewalk sweeper just a make work project?
The sidewalk sweepers have enougu capacity to do the few sidewalks this city has in a much quicker rotation time than the street crews can do their work. Kind of obvious.
So, do you really want to slow the sidewalk crews down?
The two quite often are not related to each other. For instance on streets like foothills, the sidewalks are removed from the street by some distance plus the snow from the street gets windrowed onto the bike lanes.
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“Some people get plowed four time while others do not get plowed at all”
One of the several indicators that the City is not capable of doing an effective and efficient job.
It is obvious to me that Corporate Communications Specialist Michael Kellett has his work cut out for him. Comments from the 250 masses just add to the confusion that is already present within the general public.
Because the average citizen only has a very basic knowledge of what each type of snow operation they may be watching they could then share thier observations with the 250 forum and it becomes gospel.
It should be the responsibility of the Communication Specialist to create an official CPG based information system to educate the unknowing, Webinars, TV spots, poiicy clarification. Q& A with people involved in the business could help to clarify problems and have them addressed.
The service centre is another troubled area well meaning personnel the have no authority to do anything other that share the information.
Huh just try dealing with bylaw services. They have more excuses for doing nothing.
Posted by: gus on February 13 2014 9:05 AM
The sidewalk sweepers have enougu capacity to do the few sidewalks this city has in a much quicker rotation time than the street crews can do their work. Kind of obvious.
So, do you really want to slow the sidewalk crews down?
The two quite often are not related to each other. For instance on streets like foothills, the sidewalks are removed from the street by some distance plus the snow from the street gets windrowed onto the bike lanes.
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I want them to use some sense when they do this! The 5th ave sidewalk from the bypass to Victoria is always cleared in a timely manner then the plow comes by and dumps chunks of ice and snow back on to it.
i followed a snow plow through town on Tuesday and was wondering if it is common practice for the plow to pull into the turning lanes at all the lights sit there through the green arrow then cut off all the cars going straight? using no indicators at all i seen this plow truck almost take out a few cars? don’t the rules apply to them? i don’t get it, it appeared vary dangerous?
A good snow clearing program in the middle of winter would probably stop a number of people from deciding to get the hell out of this City.
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Lots of nice townhomes in Abby from 250 to 300 thousand.
cheers
Posted by: Eddie Adams on February 13 2014 9:21 AM
It is obvious to me that Corporate Communications Specialist Michael Kellett has his work cut out for him. Comments from the 250 masses just add to the confusion that is already present within the general public.
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6 people constitutes “masses”? :)
omg. it’s winter, we got a bit of snow and crews cleared the snow. That’s news?
Good thing the city has a new spin doctor who is able to let us know what we can already see.
Hum, this just in. It got dark but the lights at city hall all came on.
It snowed on Monday, today is Thursday. None of the streets I use to and from work have seen a plow yet. I guess these streets must be in some other city because CKPG news reported yesterday that the city has completed clearing this latest snow fall. Still lots of two lane streets that have been plowed and left as single lane and a half around here.
I think we should encourage the City Manager to ask our Corporate Communications Specialist Michael Kellett to present whatever report is going to be given to Council and answer all questions.
I mean, what gives?
The past 3 early mornings between 2am and 4am we have been woken up by plows and graders down our street. After the first night I thought to myself “that was quick” only to go outside in the morning to find nothing had been done. By my count they have driven with plows and graders 12 times total in 3 mornings without dropping a blade on our street.
I heard Fort St. was completely blocked with snow, wonder if they cleared that.
the moose…It is a sand truck sprinkling sand at intersections before the next predicted snowfall. Gotta keep them putting their “hours on” to justify their jobs.
Garbage day was today and it was picked up but the road has not been plowed yet. I know this because I just got in from getting my vehicle unstuck from the snow on the road. My road is up in the Hart. I think I will get a 4×4 next year.
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