By the end of today, snow removal crews will be finished all residential areas hit by snowfalls prior to the Thursday night dump and have already begun the four-day cycle to sweep up the snow that fell Thursday.
"Actually we just finished the yellow garbage area today [Thursday] so it is clear for garbage day, we almost finished the red zone so it's ready [for Monday pickup], and overnight we start on the downtown again and No. 1s and No. 2s [priority routes]. There will be some windrows still to pick up, but the timing worked out well this time," said Al Clark, the city's manager of transportation.
Clark referred critics of the department's handling of the recent spate of snow to the municipality's Snow and Ice Removal Policy. This long-established document spells out the rules he and his crews have to go by. It orders them to turn their attention to the downtown streets and No. 1 and 2 routes as soon as the accumulation reaches 75 mm (three inches, or 100 mm for residential streets) and carry along a set map until all residential areas are done. It also stipulates the downtown work start in the evening of reaching that threshold, so this allowed Thursday activity to carry on in the residential areas before the equipment had to reroute back to the downtown on Thursday evening.
"There is an expectation that we adhere to it," Clark said. "There are some people who still think we aren't out there fast enough, but we do what we can."
Clark asked the public to be patient, there isn't a shift going idle in this period of precipitation. He reminds drivers to be safe, considerate and safety-conscious in the vicinity of working crews and equipment.
