â–º Listen Live
HomeNewsCrews doing all they can to mitigate snow, ice related road woes:...

Crews doing all they can to mitigate snow, ice related road woes: Mayor Clayton

Grande Prairie Mayor Jackie Clayton says she understands the frustration of residents when it comes to snow and ice removal across the city, but she is of the firm belief that crews are staying on top of the situation as best they can.

Clayton says with a pair of significant snowfalls, mixed in with both frigid and above-average temperatures, certainly has made things easy for transportation crews. She adds since the melt began last week, it has only seemingly made a bad situation worse.

“The accumulation of all these winter-type events obviously has put our city in a position where the roads aren’t in a desirable place and they’re not in a great state,” she says.

“Now the roads are clear we are seeing the ponding of water in neighbourhoods, and I know for example many people are having flooding in their basements, leaking roofs, the extreme weather situation we are experiencing right now has a lot of impact on people’s residential houses, commercial businesses and on our roads as well,” she adds.

- Advertisement -

Clayton says crews continue to plow roads as needed, but variables like drifting snow, and a stretch of cold which hampered the use of things like salt, made the job more difficult. She adds that while the time of clearing may not be satisfactory to all, they’re closely mirroring the expectations in the municipal snow and ice removal bylaw.

“We have exercised contractors in residential neighbourhoods, we are using our equipment to [extend] capacity… transportation currently has a budget that is based on snow events,” she says.

“There are also opportunities for council to explore increased snow removal, but at this time, they are very close to their targets on this snow policy, and right now the progress is changing daily, and the operational side of things is changing daily as well as we adapt to the changing weather.”

Earlier this month, Transportation Manager Robert Carroll said it was likely crews would remove around 7,000 loads of snow as part of the full cleanup of the city.

- Advertisment -
- Advertisment -
- Advertisement -

Continue Reading