While they commend those who are out there doing the work, council needs to be realistic about the state of the winter roads, said Coun. Murry Krause.
"The roads are terrible; I think we have to acknowledge that, we can't sugar coat it," he said. "I think it really is about what are we learning from it, how can we mitigate it in the future if it should happen again."
Operations superintendent Bill Gaal provided a brief update to council on snowclearing operations Monday night, saying crews were finishing up in the blue garbage collection zone and were moving into the red and yellow zones. Crews will be redoing arterial and collector roads around schools today and problem areas such as Anderson Street and the streets around DP Todd secondary school should have been completed Monday evening, said Gaal.
"Certainly the snow on top of freezing rain followed by colder temperatures has caused us problems on residential streets," he said.
According to Gaal, all available pieces of city and rental equipment is in use, with the exception of one grader due to an operator having a death in the family.
A more comprehensive report on the state of snow clearing and the challenges the department is facing is expected to come before council at the Jan. 20 meeting.
