By Jeff Labine

Snow removal coming to residential areas next week

Jan 27, 2017 | 1:00 PM

While residential neighbourhoods aren’t at the top of the City of Prince Albert’s snow removal list, clearing should start as soon as next week.

The reason for the delay is because major arteries like Second Ave., Sixth Ave. and 15th St. have to be plowed first.

“Just be patient with us,” Brent Kennedy, the city’s roadways manager, said. “We’re working the best we can. We will be in full swing with residential next week.”

Eight to 10 cm of snow covered the city starting on Sunday and continued until Monday afternoon. Snow removal followed suit with the first priorities being the main arteries.

Kennedy explained the city has a priority map they follow when clearing snow. Five to six streets are classified as priority one, which includes the hills. Priority two includes roads that connect to the main thoroughfares and school zones and bus routes. The downtown area is a priority three and residential is priority four.

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“It takes us 48 hours to do what we have to do,” he said. “And then when we go downtown. There’s another day we lose because we have to do it at night. So for residential, we’re usually there about a week after the snow [started]. So we’re right on schedule.”

The city currently owns two snow removal graders and rents two more whenever there’s a major snowfall. As soon as the roads accumulate two inches of snow, the graders hit the streets. Kennedy said the city has a duty foreman who makes the call to send out the fleet.

Kennedy added the number of graders appear to be the most the city can have at the moment because of the number of gates available. Gates are attached to the graders to prevent snow from going into people’s driveways, although up to 12 inches is allowed.

Generally, the city’s snow removal budget is around $600,000. Snow removal last year cost the city more than $416,000, although this number hasn’t been audited yet and could change slightly.

Fewer snowfalls in 2016 helped keep costs under budget, however the savings aren’t being carried over to this year’s budget.

Mayor Greg Dionne explained there can be delays when they rent out private equipment.

“Some days we when we want to rent a grader privately, we have to wait a day or two after the snowfall because they have contracts to clean private property,” he said.

He added it didn’t make fiscal sense to purchase a new grader when the city can rent privately.

Jeff Labine is paNOW’s health and education reporter. He can be reached at Jeff.Labine@jpbg.ca or tweet him @labinereporter.