MOOSE JAW — Two recent snowfalls clogged Moose Jaw’s streets and slowed down traffic considerably, while they also made it difficult for city crews to clear priority roads in a timely manner.
During the Nov. 25 regular city council meeting, Coun. Patrick Boyle asked city administration how well crews cleared snow and whether their efforts were fast enough in relation to the city’s snow clearance policy.
“I had a lot of comments and questions about the first snowfall of the year,” he said.
Bevan Harlton, director of operations, explained that after a major snowfall, the policy says that crews will completely plow all priority 1 streets within 24 hours, all priority 2 streets within 48 hours, all priority 3 streets within 72 hours and priority 4 roads within 96 hours.
Crews began working to clear priority 1 roads after the first snowfall on Nov. 21 and were beginning to focus on priority 2 streets when the second snowfall happened on Nov. 23, he continued. So, staff “flipped back” to priority 1 locations on Nov. 24.
“If you look at when the snowfall was done on Sunday afternoon, I think you could argue that we are over 24 hours on priority 1 locations,” Harlton said.
“However, the winds from the northwest blew quite significantly, and I know that we were seeing drifting on Sunday afternoon until about 5 p.m. when the winds subsided.”
There is “some interpretation” about when the snowfalls concluded, but what city hall knows is that having a second big dump of snow two days after the first did affect service times, he added.
Boyle wondered if city administration had considered using GPS tracking devices on all graders and reporting their progress on the city app so residents know where the machines were and when they were operating.
Harlton replied that all equipment has GPS devices so they can be geo-located in the city. Meanwhile, he recalled that conversations happened several years ago about connecting those devices to a city software program — geographic information system (GIS) — and making that information available to the public.
“That isn’t something that I’ve been discussing with my staff at public works at this time. … the hardware is there (and) I think it’s something we could put forward (at budget time),” he added. “It would be a matter of connecting the outputs and our staff at GIS.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Dec. 2.
