Saskatoon crews have cleared almost half of city's streets after snowstorm

Crews will have tackled the accumulation of snow dumped during last weekend's storm in almost half of Saskatoon's residential neighbourhoods by the end of Saturday night, the city says.

Terry Schmidt, the City of Saskatoon's general manager of transportation and construction, said the plan is to have every street in the city graded by Friday, weather permitting.

"As of this morning, basic mobility has been restored in 15 neighbourhoods throughout the city," Schmidt said Saturday.

"Clearing is underway in an additional six neighbourhoods and today or tonight work is scheduled to start on an additional eight neighbourhoods." 

By Saturday night Schmidt said basic mobility will have been restored, or work underway, in 29 of the 65 residential neighbourhoods. 

Basic mobility means "you can get out of your house to go get your groceries and get to your medical appointments and get to work with a car. You don't need a four-by-four or heavy vehicle to be able to get out," Schmidt said.

"There's still going to be piles of snow on the edges of the streets and we will come back and take care of those at a later date," he said.

"This will mean there may be impacts on parking availability in neighbourhoods when the snow is being cleared."

Schmidt said which residential neighbourhoods get priority depends on a number of factors, including co-ordination with services like garbage collection and the impact the storm has had on each area.

"Some of the largest impacts that have been identified are neighbourhoods at the edges of the city, where the strong winds resulted in drifting."

Windrows and snow ridges will take more time to be hauled away.

With the added snow and drifting snow Saturday, some equipment may have to be diverted back to priority streets. 

Complaints about clearing

City manager Jeff Jorgenson said there have been complaints from some residents who don't want their streets graded because of the snow ridges left behind.

He said some residents have said they would rather deal with the snow pack than the ridges of snow along the edge of the street. 

Jorgenson said he understands that concern but there are two reasons to clear the snow this time around.

"Of course, some vehicles are struggling to navigate streets with extensive snow and so we need to restore that driving surface for all vehicles," he said.

"But also the risk of significant ruts is really high at this level of snow pack."

As temperatures warm, ruts get worse, and when it gets cold again they are hard to get rid of, said Jorgenson.

"If it goes back into a very cold situation, boy, those ruts are a lot more treacherous than they are even now."

In other areas:

• The city will also start clearing back alleys, with the initial focus on back lanes with garbage pickup. 
• Transit is back operating on regular schedules with a few minor disruptions.
• City crews are working on clearing snow in the school zones, but there will still be piles of snow on Monday. People are asked to use caution when dropping off their children.
• The city continues to hire more contractors, who are bringing in a wide variety of equipment such as loaders, trucks, graders and even snowblowers.