Residential snow removal begins

St. Albert residents should finally have clear streets this week now that the graders have moved into local neighbourhoods.

Public works officials announced Monday they had started clearing snow from residential streets. Staffers had finished clearing collector roads the previous weekend.

Nine graders accompanied by Bobcats rolled out Monday afternoon into the Kingswood, Parkwood, Woodlands and North Ridge neighbourhoods, says public works director Glenn Tompolski, and would move on to the rest of the city later this week. “We anticipate having it all complete prior to the year’s end.”

The city used a “hybrid” cleanup last winter that used blowers instead of graders to partially clear some streets, Tompolski says — a move meant to save money, as some neighbourhoods did not have enough snow to justify grading. It took the city five weeks to clear the streets as a result.

There’s been too much snow too fast to use the hybrid system this year, Tompolski says. This will be a full cleanup, with teams of contractors scraping streets to the pavement and piling snow on the boulevards.

Teams will work in every quadrant of the city, Tompolski says, moving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Keep your vehicles off the streets, he advises — crews are putting up warning signs, but could move into your area with little notice if they’re ahead of schedule.

Residents should also remember not to clear their driveways by pushing snow onto the street, Tompolski says. Doing so makes life tough for grader crews, and is also against city bylaws. Any resident who shoves snow from their driveway onto city streets could be subject to a $250 fine.

Crews will work in multiple neighbourhoods at once, Tompolski says, starting in Kingswood and ending in Grandin (the reverse of last year’s order). Expect to see graders on the street from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except for Christmas and Boxing Day. “Over the next 10 days, we’ll be getting to your neighbourhood.”

Tompolski asks all residents to be patients with grader crews, especially if they leave a mountain of snow in the middle of your cul-de-sac. Those mountains would be cleared in a few weeks, he says. “We’ll be in your neighbourhood as soon as we can.”