Edmonton's slow snow removal blamed on staff, budget shortages
City managers estimate between $42M and $106M needed to improve clearing
The City of Edmonton fell short of hitting its target to clear snow and ice from roads and multi-use paths this past winter, a new city report released Thursday shows.
Money and staff shortages are mostly to blame, city managers said following the release of the report "Snow and Ice Control: Options to Increase Service Standards."
Eddie Robar, manager of fleet and facility services, said the city has a staffing shortage for trained operators.
"We put out on average about 57 trucks out on the road each winter snow event, and we should be putting about 100 on the road," he said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
City crews completed on average 76 per cent of arterial roads within 36 hours after a snowfall, which is the current standard.
Collector roads and bus routes are supposed to reach bare pavement within 48 hours and the city only accomplished this 37 per cent of the time.
Crews cleared 60 per cent of residential roads and alleys within the target of 7-9 days once the blading cycle started.
Robar said staff shortages can be attributed to a combination of factors in the past five years.
"The pandemic. The changes in budget but also the loss of budget when it comes to things like automated enforcement going down," Robar said.
The city's snow and ice budget took about a $5 million hit when it received less revenue from the photo radar program last year, he said.
The city's mobility network — roads, sidewalks, parking lots and multi-use paths — has also increased by nearly 20 per cent since 2016, the report says.
The information released Thursday is available mainly because snow clearing equipment was fitted with GPS trackers this past season, the city says.
More money needed
Craig McKeown, manager of the city's Parks and Roads branch, said his team recommends the city increase the snow clearing budget, which for 2011-22 was a total of $57.1 million.
"To clear to bare pavement within 36 hours, we don't have the resources to do that right now," McKeown said at the news conference.
McKeown outlines two main scenarios for improving service.
One is to increase the budget by $42 million to hire sufficient staff to clear priority roads, bus stops, sidewalks and shared-use paths.
That would bump up the time it would take to clear priority roads to about three days from the current performance of five.
The second option is to increase the budget by $106 million to fully hit the current targets, which means bare pavement for all arterial roads within 36 hours.
Council scrutiny
Council's community and public services committee is scheduled to review and discuss the report at a meeting April. 25.
Coun. Tim Cartmell said he plans to ask administration several questions around staffing shortages and clearing targets.
Cartmell said he thinks the budget for snow clearing should be increased but he's not sure where the money will come from.
Council will have to determine where the priorities are in upcoming budget discussions, he said.
"To my mind, we have that conversation before we increase property taxes and take more money."
Cartmell told CBC Thursday that the goal of bare pavement isn't realistic.
"We cannot in any pragmatic way turn January into July when it comes to our roads," he said. "It's a winter city. We're going to have to deal with snow and ice on residential roads. We're going have to deal with packed snow. And that's just the way of it."
Cartmell suggested investing in transit might help people get around better rather than trying to reach unrealistic goals.