Currently, we have approximately 5cm of heavy wet snow on the ground, and we expect to end up between 8 and 9CM by midnight. Shovel teams will be starting at 10pm tonight to get a head start on the heavy snow, and operators will be starting at midnight (12AM) as they will likely be working all day tomorrow following plows and graders. The City has announced a parking ban during the day tomorrow (February 25th) from 7AM-7PM, so we expect graders to be out all day tomorrow although nothing has been communicated to us yet.
Since this is an evening pass, we understand many people will have cars in the driveway. We ask that you pull up close to your garage and/or to one side of the driveway (if you have a double driveway) so we can clear as much of your driveway as possible for you.
Ongoing Frustration with City Snow Clearing Decisions
This will be a VERY long clearing for only a 9 CM snow event and we will be working overnight and all day tomorrow due to the City’s decision on when to start clearing. It would make much more sense for them to clear the residential side streets overnight and be finished by noon but we can only assume they have decided otherwise. While we would love to be able to start our teams earlier tonight, we cannot possibly keep our guys on for 24+ hour shifts while operating heavy machinery.
The City’s decision making ability and lack of communication has been a problematic pattern for the past few storms and throughout the last year. Despite our best efforts to organize meetings and to try to engage Roads Department Managers to discuss how we can work together, we are constantly met with resistance. The decisions made by the City to send graders out days after the storms not only frustrate you and us, they are greatly increasing our operating costs this season.
We will be reaching out again to our local city councillors that serve the various ridings in our service area and we would encourage you all to do the same. We are asking for open dialogue and better communication from the City which will allow for a more cohesive winter maintenance plan from both private snow contractors and the city. This would allow us to make important and accurate decisions on when to start our staff to coincide with the city equipment that leave large plow banks at the end of your driveway.