Improving the City’s Snow and Ice Control Policy

As we say farewell to our snowiest season for 2022, we have lots of learnings for the City’s Snow and Ice Control Policy to be better prepared for next year. It’s been a complicated discussion. Here are the key points that have stood out to me:

• Working within our budget: We need to understand what’s possible from a budget standpoint.  At that time, with so much on our wishlist based on the experiences we’ve heard from Edmontonians, we as a City still need to figure out some trade-offs.

• Blading: The approach of blading down to the pavement that we saw this winter had so many challenges that outweigh the benefits. It is expensive and created barriers to accessibility, not only on roads but also sidewalks, with particular impacts on seniors, for folks with accessibility needs, for young parents, for emergencies. I hope we can move away from this as a priority option. We’ve collated residents’ feedback in detail, and shared it with the team directly working on the policy in hopes that we can centre it on Edmontonians’ experiences. 

• Changes I want to see: I want to see resident feedback treated as a key indicator for success. I want to see our frontline workers’ input used to shape the snow removal program moving forward. I want our frontline workers to feel empowered to make some real-time decisions, and not feel like they are locked in by top-down directions. I heard this quite frequently this winter. I want to see our equipment be fully maximized before even considering new equipment, meaning that we also have the staff available to use this equipment. I want to see healthier relationships with our contractors. As the labour unions acknowledged, contractors are necessary to working together with our City workers to achieve the services we aim for. All of this feeds into a cycle that contributes to workforce and public morale, and we need positive morale to make sure the service standards are achieved, in addition to some of these other pieces.

---

Read the Edmonton Journal article here: Council committee adds up cost of boosting Edmonton's beleaguered snow-clearing efforts, April 25, 2022

---

See the Council proceedings from April 25, 2022 here.

I voted in favour of the following motion:

That Community and Public Services Committee recommend to City Council:

1. That Administration provide a report to Committee outlining budget considerations to support the following options as outlined in Attachment 6 of the April 25, 2022, City Operations report CO00778 including:

1. Options to Enhance Current Service Delivery:

1. Roads Option R1;

   1. Active Pathways AP1; and

   2. Modify active pathways AP1 to AP3 which is 12 hours for P1, 24 hours for P2, and 120 hours for P3.

b. Options for New Service Enhancements:

1. Increased parking ban and sidewalk enforcement;

   1. Clearing sidewalks for all senior facilities within 24 hours of snow event;

   2. Optimizing the efficiency of sandboxes, including options to increase or decrease frequency and volume, and streamline locations;

   3. Introduce a courtesy tow during parking ban program;

   4. Clear public squares and internal paved pathways in parks and playgrounds; and

   5. Buy 6 double-wide trailer snow plows.

c. Assisted Snow Programs.

2. That Administration provide a detailed summary of amounts spent on contracted work for the last five winter seasons and summary of benchmarking and operation metrics that will be used to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the Snow and Ice Control Program.

3. That Administration provide the lifespan and utilization analysis of current Snow and Ice Control equipment, as well as staff, and contracts currently in place, to address contributing factors behind equipment utilization of 57% during the 2021-2022 Snow and Ice Control season.

4. That Administration provide a full cost breakdown of complete residential blading, including culs-de-sac, to bare pavement and removal of windrows once per winter season.