Report recommends significant changes for city snow removal

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on June 10, 2022.

A crew of City of Lethbridge snow plows makes their way down Scenic Drive South in 2019 as they work to clear city roadways.Herald file photo by Ian Martens

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The Civic Works Standing Policy Committee is recommending that city council approve modifications to service levels for plowing and snow removal.
A report submitted Wednesday by Darwin Juell, general manager of Transportation and Julian Ruck, Transportation’s operations manager, offered several recommendations.
The first phase starting in the winter of 2022-23 calls for the declaration of snow routes and implementation of plowing to the right on about 28 kilometres of selected roadways.
The SPC was also asked to recommend to council that starting in the winter of ’23-24 and continuing into ’24-25 the city “implement the provision of more residential plowing, less snow removal (snow removal only in the hospital area, downtown and around school zones) in combination with declaring snow routes more frequently citywide and provide enforcement during snow events.”
The recommendation also calls for administration to report to the Civic Works SPC in the spring of 2025 about impacts on the operating budget and resources.
The KPMG report in 2020 recommended the City modify service levels for snow and ice control as well as street sweeping. It proposed looking at increasing plowing and reducing snow removal.
In a survey that ran from Jan. 4 – Feb. 14 on the Get Involved Lethbridge page, residents had three priorities in snow and ice control options.
They included:
1. More residential plowing, snow removal only downtown and in the hospital area, plowing in school zones.
2. More residential plowing, less snow removal (snow removal only in the hospital area, downtown and around school zones)
3. Maintain current practice – level of snow removal and snow plowing stays the same as it is now.
For snow route enforcement options, the public’s preferences were:
1. Increased enforcement – more active ticketing on snow routes when activated, to allow more efficient snow and ice control operations
2. Status Quo – very rarely snow routes have been declared or enforced during major weather events
3. No snow route enforcement – this will reduce ticketing but may imply a cost increase for the city, increase to road hazards and risk as plowing opportunities are reduced.
Administration is recommending that service level changes be implemented in several phases starting with “declaration of snow routes and implementation of plowing to the right on 28 km on selected existing snow routes when there are more than 10 cm of snow accumulation in the forecast or more than 5 cm of snow accumulated in place. Snow routes will be enforced if cars impede winter operations along snow routes.”
In Phase 2, administration is recommending the implementation of more residential plowing, and less snow removal in combination with declaring snow routes more frequently and providing enforcement during snow events.
Juell told the SPC the last two public opinion surveys had snow removal as 98 and 99 per cent being important or very important.
“So we know the public is very concerned about snow removal. Also 70 per cent of the public generally is satisfied with this service,” Juell said.
“I do believe that any changes to this program will be highly scrutinized by the public which is why we’ve taken a very conservative and slow approach” to service modifications, he said.
“Overall we followed the recommendations of the public” with the exception of one, Juell said. The survey wanted more snow plowing and less removal but now there will be removal in all 35-40 school areas.
“It’s expensive but it’s for added safety for children, school busing and that was a request from the stakeholders so we let that override what the public said,” added Juell.
People also want increased enforcement, which matches what the City did with its street sweeping program from 2017-19.
“We have snow routes but we’ve never ticketed on snow routes before,” said Juell, adding if vehicles are going to get off streets on snow routes, ticketing has to be done.
Snow removal costs between $80,000 and $100,000 per shift, he said.
“It’s a lot of vehicles, lot of trucks, a lot of contractors and we sometimes don’t do any snow removal other than the downtown and hospital areas. But when we do it, we spend a lot of money doing snow removal,” he said.
In some years, the entire westside and part of the northside has been done because of drifting and the city has gone way over budget.
Plowing meanwhile costs $2,500 per plow and usually the City needs between two and four operating. The City has 12 plow trucks.
“That balances speed versus with slow and expensive snow removal. The quality of work would be about the same on removing it from the street. The impacts is in parking lanes and driveways,” he added.
A 10-year summary of snow removal costs shows surpluses and deficits. In 2012, the City had a $7 million deficit because from 2007-11, the City ran $3 million to $5 million over budget, 2009 alone being $3.2 million over budget. 2011 was $2.3 million over budget.
“So we significantly went into a deficit situation,” Juell said.
Budgets were corrected, weather got stable and in the last 10 years, the City has been $1.75 million in the black, he said, adding winters haven’t been as bad recently as they were in the earlier part of the 2000s.
“If council chooses to accept the recommendation on modified service levels, we know it’s going to be a big adjustment for the public,” said Juell.
That’s why his department is asking for a three-year rollout. The first phase will consist of 28 kilometres on snow routes.
“That’s to try it out, work the bugs out, get the people on the snow routes, the 28 kilometres, used to it.
“Phase 2 is rolling it out on about 138 kilometres which also happens to be 30,000 to 35,000 residences. Those are basically major collector roads, bus routes,” Juell said.
The city has about 530 kms of overall roads – about 120 are now priority 1 plowing.
Priority 4 residential streets aren’t being changed.
This leaves about 160-165 km of collector roads where the City would be implementing plowing, he said.

Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter