City snow removal is adequate in its present state. Money could be saved by not trucking away snow from the medians when spring temperatures are in fact melting the snow. Interesting to see rows of dump trucks lined up to cart away snow that would melt and be gone in a few days in any event.

"cart away snow that would melt and be gone in a few days in any event"

Ah, we have a weatherman in our midst. It could just as well snow another 15 cm and/or the water from the melt freezing on the road and requiring fresh sanding.

Totally unsafe.

One of the options the city is considering to save money is to leave behind the snow that the grader pushes into driveway entrances!

Usually it is not the kind of snow which can be cleared away easily with a snowblower because it is hard lumps of ice and packed snow, dirt and gravel and rocks.

It usually must be picked apart and cleared away by shovel - something that the aging population of our town is not always physically capable of doing.

Obviously the city is in dire trouble as far as money for the snow removal budget is concerned...tell us when this was NOT a dire trouble issue!

Hopefully the city won't unload a task that is done in seconds by a front end loader on the citizens who can spend as much as half an hour to an hour of hard physical work in nasty weather to be able to get in or out of their driveways.

This is an important issue in the areas of the city where there is a greater amount of snow than in the surroundings of City Hall.

Is anybody listening? I doubt it.

The options looked at in the poll are all cost saving measures when we really are not getting common standard of services provided in other winter cities in Canada.

This is the first city I have lived in which provides driveway entrance clearing. I can see where it could be considered as required because the city waits so long to cleat the snow on residential streets that waht is deposited is the hardpack snow ice slabs that have developed after 4 or so days of traffic, sometimes even longer when a second snowfall happens.

Clear the snow in a timely fashion and the shoveling of the entrance is not much more difficult than shoveling the driveway. Everyone has to find their own way of doing that anyway, whether it is by a themselves, a neighbour, the kids up the street, or a contracted service.

I would like to thank the city for doing an excellent job in the snow removal for the last 6 months. Thumbs up

O.K., Gus! Thanks for the excellent comment! So I clear my whole driveway all the way to the street, snowfall after snowfall.

Then the graders come during the night or early in the morning and plow back all the piled up snow along all the properties on both sides of the street. The snow is plowed back several feet.

A four foot wide by three feet high swath of snow, hard ice chunks, hard snow, rocks and gravel is left behind to block my driveway entrance.

Next time I will call YOU to give me a hand with a pick and a shovel!

I know you won't mind! Thanks for your support!

When people stick together nothing is impossible!

I gotta agree with PrinceGeorge on this one. If they're going to block in my driveway then I'd prefer they not plow my street at all.

I've lived in PG all my life and have never seen a 4x3 foot deposit left in any of my driveways...

verballabel you must have slept through some of the winter. I've lived in PG for over forty years and I've see a 4x3 foot deposit left quite often. Not in the last couple of years though as there was minimal snowfall. Anyone remember the 80's.

If this happens, you better lower are taxes, since you raised them to have this done. Also you know how many seniors are in this town that will have heart attacks if you take this away.
If you want to save money quit using are dollars to fly to China. I heard are last mayor made a private deal to change all the auto light seniors on the street lights, and this was arranged on one of his many trips to China. Now he is the middle man in this deal. Is this how we spend are tax dollars, so we can line the pockets of our city council after they retire.

Do you want the driveways cleared, or don't you. The city rather not clear it. They will not do individual services. we all get it or we all don't.

Come to think of it, My driveway always gets plowed in! How come our neighbour hood does not have a loader cleaning up the windrows. That is hardly fair! I pay the same taxes, so why is it that some parts of the city gets better services!

Prince George - I wrote: "Clear the snow in a timely fashion and the shoveling of the entrance is not much more difficult than shoveling the driveway."

What I meant by that is that if the city were to clear the residential streets within 24 hours of a snowfall, then the kind of composition of deposit you describe would not occur.

Here are some pictures from Ottawa and Winnipeg of more appropriate plowing equipment as well as the snow conditions they are plowing and leaving behind since they get at it fairly quickly.

Winnipeg
http://www.chrisd.ca/blog/7663/city-of-winnipeg-snow-plowing-major-snowfall
Notice no cars parked on the side of the road and the driver can get a reasonable speed up to allow the job to get done much faster than is typical in Prince George.

Ottawa
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnwmacdonald/2321665222
This is at an intersection while the driver has stopped the vehicle and is adjusting the gate.

I think people in poor shape should not even be plowing any part of their driveway unless they want back problems or heart attacks. Make arrangements with younger members of the family, neighbours, kids down the street, commercial plowing services, etc.

clear the end of your drive way,get of your butt and help your neighbor like we did years ago

Nevermind thesnowpack at the end of the driveway, out in Beaverly it's normal for the roads to be skipped completely, even though it's a school bus route. I can't even count the times I've been stranded in the snow not able to get to school, and having no choice but to go home.

Snow ploughs? heh heh

If they put gates on all their graders they could really cut down on the number of loaders they hire.

Very cute. I just spent about a half hour filling in feedback to the city's online survey on snow removal and submitted it, only to be told that an error had occured and that I would have to start all over again. I guess they really want the feed back.