"Gaal says it takes about 4 ½ days to do one complete snow clearing in the city."

There is probably not much wrong with the first part of the policy. The obvious problem that any grade school kid can see is that there is no time element associated with that.

The time element should be that the worst case situation, the residential street which takes the longest to get to, gets done within 24 hours of the snow depth reaching the initiation limits set.

That is twice as long as it takes in London Ontario sitting deep in the heart of the Ontario and New York’s snow belt.

They divide the City up into beats. 58 for the city. How many are there in this City? 2 .. 3 … maybe 4? Maybe none?

Time to learn what a real winter city does. This city being a “winter city” is a joke and has been for decades.

http://www.london.ca/cityhall/envservices/faq_snow.htm

It’s worth reading how to do it.

Here is Ottawa’s standard:

http://ottawa.ca/residents/onthemove/driving/road_sidewalk/plowing_salting/road_en.html

http://ottawa.ca/residents/onthemove/driving/road_sidewalk/plowing_salting/when_how_en.html

Notice that the residential streets in both cases are plowed but left to snow packed conditions. In other words, smooth hard snow surfaces probably a couple of centimeters thick so that when it does thaw, the ruts developed are not deep and cause people to get stuck. Our residential street in the bowl got plowed on Wednesday. That was the first time it was plowed this year. That is unacceptable!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2006/12/13/snow-ed.html

""Clear all snow from residential streets and remaining streets after 4 inches of snow has fallen or the packed snow reaches 2 inches in depth.""


I couldn't help but chuckle upon reading this statement !!! Anyone that lives in the Prince George area knows they take weeks to clear the residential areas at times. Mr Gaal either isn't doing his job....or he isn't aware that they aren't coming close to applying this policy.

We all want our streets plowed quickly, myself included. Are we willing to pay for it? I'm not willing to pay more in taxes to have my street cleaned faster. It's still drivable. I was born & raised in southern Ontario and yes they do clean the streets much faster, but there are a lot more people there paying taxes than there is here so they do have the money to do it. They get a lot more things than we do because they have the tax revenue to do it. I lived in Regina and the subdivisions didn't get done at all and the main roads didn't get plowed until it quit snowing. That's not good either, but I just learned to drive slower and leave a little earlier.

It's all about how much are we willing to pay. I live in the sticks and our road gets ploughed "once in a long while". I'm fine with that...it is winter after all and I have the choice of getting good snow tires and an appropriate vehicle. If you complain too much about snow removal then make sure you support future tax hikes too.

I think it is cheeper for all of us if they would put sand down on the road after they glaze it with a scrap. I'd rather they just left the side roads the way they were until we either expected more snow, or warm weather to melt the glaze. We're expecting minus 25 for the next week and thus a high glaze by days end, much less the next week. I predict a rash of car accidents in the coming week.

Everybody now !!!(sung to that old campfire tune)

Winter City, Winter City,
Roads are shitty, what a pity,
Streets are sad, plow a tad,
Give it gas, don't freeze your ass.

Stick to the rules,
Don't change a thing,
A City of fools,
Waiting for spring.

:-)

I don't think anybody has anything to complain about. The snow removal in this city is excellent. Should the city be able to remove all the snow in a matter of 2 days? What if it keeps snowing? Owl, if you envy the other cities maybe you should winter there. The snow removal in this city is no where close to being a joke. Instead of quoting policies from the other cities you should talk to people who have lived there. I have lived in other "snow belt" cities in Ontario and we never saw a snow plow on residential streets for up to 2 weeks after a major snow storm. Most of the time the snow will melt before they get the plows to residential streets.
You say London is in the heart of the snow belt? You can go to London in the middle of January and be lucky if you see any snow. They get about one big "dump" a year. When they do the city shuts down for days. Don't believe everything you read Owl!

With our tax base I think the city is doing a great job.

Let me see ....

pay $100 a year more tax or pay $10,000 more for a 4 wheel drive SUV, plus insurance which amoutns or more than $100 per year and gasoline which amoutns to more than $300 per year ....

such a difficult decsion to make ...

BTW .... the number of citizens living in a community is directly relted to the number of kilometers of sidewalks and roads, and lanes and bustops which have to be cleared .... so, that there are more people living in a city is hardly a valid argument.

That most are living in single family residences strung out along long ribbons of road as opposed to more dense apartment living, even with "gated communities" which are responsible for cleaning their own internal "streets" ... yes, that is an argument ....

the answer to that is simple .... that is what happens when that is the culture of the community you live in ... single family housing should be paying more for snow clearing than more dense housing units do since single family housing is the reason why we have so much public pavement.

I really do not know why we bother paving streets. If we can drive about 4 months of the year on washboarded and rutted roads, gravel roads in the summer would be a welcome relief.

All the money we would save in paving could go to grading the roads in the summer and clearing the snow in the winter to keep the roads passable year around.....

"Owl, if you envy the other cities maybe you should winter there."

That is always the retort. A stupid one to say the least. Do you not have standards you live by? What is wrong with expecting a reasonable standard?

Maybe we should get rid of all the curb cuts which allow people on wheels to negotiate the city streets? What other common standards do you want to get rid of?

The snow accumulations here are a laugh. The amount of snow that it took a week to fall here takes 12 hours to fall in the maritimes and parts of Ontario and Quebec. And then they have drifts twice as deep in sections.

Maybe we should get rid of sewers and dump our shit in the streets too .....

;-)

"I have lived in other "snow belt" cities in Ontario and we never saw a snow plow on residential streets for up to 2 weeks after a major snow storm."

A major snowfall is 8 to 12 inches in as many hours or less as you know. They have REAL blizzards there.

I grew up in Ottawa. When I was still living with my parents I used to shovel the driveway, clear away the windrow left by the plow in our Single Family residential neigbourhood. A few hours later the plow would be by again and I would have to clear the windrow again. If one has an 8 inch snowfall happening, one does not wait till it is over.

Transportation in a City is a key service.

"Owl, if you envy the other cities maybe you should winter there."

why is that a stupid response?

When people pick cities to live in these days, they have a vast choice. Typically they will pick a city which provides the best livestyle for them.

I am not the only one who complains about some things. There are others who complain about things and when they do, they will eventually head elsewhere.

When a city does not provide reasonable services to its residents, then industry is not interested in moving here. Industry requires a reliable workforce, not one that has a high turnover.

I would like to have a city that is interested in being of service to its citizens and is intersted in setting up an environemtn that is pleasant for people to live in and not set up all sorts of unecessary barriers which other communities have solved and do not cause people to move from those places.

But, what the heck ... who cares ... let the place die a natural death ....

I thought the policy was wait until it stops snowing and then start plowing. That has generally been what I've see in the last ten years. Except for some main streets.

"Maybe we should get rid of sewers and dump our shit in the streets too"
That was a good come back Owl- whatever that has to do with snow removal. All I was trying to say is that I think the city does good job of removing snow. Why not do a poll in PG to see what the average person thinks. Also ask the question about tax increases for timely snow removal- maybe even contracting out.

Grass is always greener- or snow is always whiter.....

Blah blah blah

Blah blah blah
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and wisdom Vocer. Do you own a penny whistle by any chance?

Hmmmm Strange, I was on an airplane at 10:46 this morning returning from Vancouver, and I havent posted to the forum in weeks.

Sorry to offend you red but I didnt write this. I did however write this to a different story weeks ago.

Owl...a bit grumpy today???

I have a sugestion...eliminate the $$ and time it takes to open driveways for every single home in the City. This practice is a huge cost in time and money and is done NOWHERE elese I know of (could be wrong but I'm sure it's rare).
Take the driverway openers and put them on another plow and your snow removal time goes down.
Every other municipality I'm aware of make residents open their own driveway...besides the exercise wouldn't be a bad thing.

"Cant we all just get along?" Never would i thought snow removal would be such a contorversy. North=Snow its a due we pay to live here.

"I have a sugestion...eliminate the $$ and time it takes to open driveways for every single home in the City. This practice is a huge cost in time and money and is done NOWHERE elese I know of (could be wrong but I'm sure it's rare).'

We oldies fought for 40 years to get our driveways cleared. Don't go backwards.

Ok lets get it right, Bill Gaal says it takes 4 days to clean up the city.

Well Bill, did someone not tell you it snowed 2" around November 17th, and then it snowed again 2" on November 24th, well that is 4". It then snowed 3-4" on Dec 2nd and 3rd, but Bill you did not start plowing downtown until Dec 5th and you are still clearing residential areas today, Dec 7th. This is the first time this year for both areas. That is not 4 days Bill that is about 14 days before you started.

Is that customer service? No, it is a joke. You want people to go downtown but you don't want to do snow removal to get us there. Small cars are getting the shit kicked out of them on residential streets because it is so rough.

I hear you are new to this job Bill, but if this is the service we can expect from you and council, god help us. Maybe as a suggestion Bill, don't be so proud, ask your workers how they have done it in the past. I am sure they won't mind helping out the boss.

We all need to remember there is an election year coming up. Let's get some councilors in there that will clean up this poor policy and get us taxpayers moving safely through the streets again.

Big Shooter has it right. Our residential area was plowed to-day. You can hardly call that good service. The Citys snow removal so far in November and December has been terrible and cannot be defended.

Once they get the new budget money in January there will be equipment all over the place plowing. Even if there is no snow

Lets quit defending mediocraty as it only encourages laggards to continue in the same vein.