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A municipal worker clears Princess Avenue East near Franklin Street on Tuesday afternoon during extra efforts to clean up after a recent record-setting snowfall.
The city has called in reinforcements in its battle against snowy streets.
To boost its snow-clearing effort, it has hired private contractors.
An official said the city hadn’t had a chance to finish the job left by previous snowfalls before the city was walloped with the latest storm.
"We never got finished our first task of cutting ruts out of streets," said City of Brandon director of public works Ian Broome. "And then, with the additional snow, it’s almost like we’re having to start over.
"There’s some areas that we’ve got to concentrate on that haven’t even been touched yet. And in order for us to do all of this, we had to bring in some help."
The storm dumped a total of 21.6 cm of snow on the city starting Sunday night and throughout Monday.
With some streets still practically impassable on Tuesday — making for dangerous driving — the city enlisted the help of graders and loaders from private contractors.
There’s some added urgency, Broome said, to clean away snow before the spring melt begins — to allow water to reach storm drains that are to be cleared of snow and ice by city workers.
Broome said city crews will continue to work 12-hour shifts to clear high-priority areas such as main roads and bus routes, while contractors were to start work on Tuesday evening by plowing residential streets.
East-west routes are cleared first, to allow residents space to park on the avenues while streets are cleared.
Workers will begin at the outer parts of the city and work toward the centre. That system alternates with major storms — for example, next time crews will work from the inner city toward the outskirts as they clear roads.
With the help from contractors, it’s hoped that city routes — including all residential streets — will be cleared by Friday.
It was also expected that back lanes used for garbage collection would be clear by the weekend.
City workers were already working on the lanes on Tuesday, but garbage pickup was estimated to be five hours behind.
To help, residents are asked to refrain from putting out their garbage and recycle bins if they didn’t have to.
Residential clearing was to begin in areas south of Richmond Avenue and north of Kirkcaldy Drive on Tuesday night.
The city stated that work may take more than 12 hours and media would be notified when those areas were clear and equipment able to move on to other residential areas.
While the city didn’t intend to ticket or tow vehicles parked on streets that were being cleared — it ran out of "No Parking" signs — residents were asked to find off-street parking wherever they could.
The rapid snow-clearing effort will leave some hazards, Broome warned.
It will lead to larger piles of snow at intersections, making it tough for motorists to see as they turn onto streets.
Piled snow may also cover part of the sidewalk, and there may be a ridge of snow left where sidewalks meet a street intersection.
Work to clear away snow piles will begin by the end of this week or next week, Broome said.
Biking and walking paths, pedestrian access to bus routes and the clearing of snowbanks away from schools for safety reasons will also be priorities this week.
There’s no figure yet for how much this storm will drain from the $900,000 snow-clearing budget which spans the 2013 calendar year.
There’s also no figure yet for the cost of bringing in private contractors.
As of last week, 22 per cent of the budget had been used.
The Manitoba government will also begin snow removal on several provincially owned Brandon streets this weekend. According to a provincial press release from Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, provincial snow removal will take place on 18th Street, Victoria Avenue, First Street and Richmond Avenue starting on Sunday, March 10, at 9 p.m. and ending on March 14. Motorists are advised to seek alternate routes during the snow removal.
Meanwhile, it looks like winter isn’t done with Brandon yet as more snow is expected on Thursday.
By Monday, however, the forecast calls for sunshine and a high around 2 C.
» ihitchen@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition March 6, 2013
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The city has called in reinforcements in its battle against snowy streets.
To boost its snow-clearing effort, it has hired private contractors.
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The city has called in reinforcements in its battle against snowy streets.
To boost its snow-clearing effort, it has hired private contractors.
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