With the first significant snowfall of the year, comes the request to move cars off of snow routes in the city.
The City of Lethbridge declared snow routes active on Sunday, Jan. 7 and residents were asked to move their vehicles off of snow routes by 8:30 a.m. Monday morning.
According to Juliane Ruck, Transportation Operations Manager, there are currently two crews out and about the city working to tackle the 80 kilometre stretch of snow routes within the city.
“We were ready, we had all out tracks ready because normally it snows in Lethbridge way earlier,” says Ruck. “Now we have ideal weather for plowing because the roads are dry and cold so the snow easily gets removed when we come with out plow trucks and we are able to scrape the snow off.”
When vehicles are parked along snow routes, it makes it difficult for the plows to get around as they don’t want to cause any damage, the plow operators have to be very diligent and slow down, which can slow down the entire snow plow operation.
“One reason we have the snow routes in place is to ask people to remove their cars so we can operate more efficiently,” says Ruck.
The plows with the city also came equipped with sand and salt, which Ruck says helps to get the snow and ice as plows can drive down a street and come back hours later and plow better.
Residents who don’t move parked vehicles on a snow route are subject to a ticket as parking enforcement officers will be going around.
To keep up to date on snow routes, Ruck says residents can use the Lethbridge Loop app—which will send reminders for snow routes as well as bin collection— 311, or use the snow plow tracker which is live and shows were active snow routes are, which will be light blue.