Patience key to weathering Montreal snow removal

Montrealers will have to get used to the sight ofsnow removal trucks until at least next week, as the city cleans up after Sunday's blizzard.

It will take nearly a week to remove the 32 centimetres of snow that fell on the greater Montreal region during the blizzard, blanketing swaths of southern and eastern Ontario and Quebec on the weekend.

The City of Montreal is reluctant to put a deadline on snow removal operations, but said it hopes to have it all picked up by Christmas Day.

Some boroughs have already started removing the snow but it will take a few days to reach all secondary streets, officials said.

This snow-removal operation will cost about $20 million and involves about 3,000 city employees working 12-hour days.

Cold weather is making it more difficult to move the snow because it is frozen, officials said.

The operation will cost about a third of Montreal's $128-million snow removal budget for the 2007-2008 winter season.

Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay asked residents to do their part by cleaning off their cars, respecting no-parking signs and taking public transit when they can.

Many seem to have heeded the advice, causing overcrowding on some of Montreal's metro lines.

Public transit users in Montreal are reporting lengthy delays on the orange line, which has been packed full two mornings in a row by the time the train has pulled out of the new Laval stops.

The public transit corporation said there is nothing it can do about overcrowding after winter storms, at least until 2010, when it expects to buy more metro cars.