With more snow in the forecast this week, the City of Lethbridge wants your feedback about recent snow and ice control changes. A new snow route network was implemented in the 2023/2024 season, as the changes affected 80 kilometres of roadway around the city. The survey is open to the public and those living on snow routes subscribed to the “Loop” app will receive a direct notification via the app to complete the survey.
“We’ve heard already a lot. Some challenges, some issues and some praise. We’d like to get more feedback from people that live around snow routes, commute along them or work in the area and need to have parking,” says Transportation Operations Manager Juliane Ruck. The survey will be available until Apr. 7 and participants will have a chance to win a ride along in a snowplow.
A few of the major challenges, Ruck notes, is ring roads around the curbs and the blocking of driveways. “We created ‘Mighty Neighbours,’ where we encourage people to look out for each other and help each other.”
Ruck adds the survey results will be shared with council in June. “Council can direct us to do adjustments or consider changes based on the results and feedback.”
According to Ruck, close to 6,000 residents live along snow routes and during average snow events, the City experienced no issues with a low number of complaints.
“But one heavy event at the end of January created a lot of challenges,” Ruck says. “We are looking at how we can help people mitigate in those kinds of events.”
Ruck says it is often difficult not to block driveways during snow removal with the City’s plow operation.
“Very often, we have one driveway after the other and the snow needs to be put somewhere. It’s pretty common practice in other communities where municipalities are asking residents to help and shovel their driveways and place the snow adjacent to the driveway or on grass,” says Ruck.
Last year, Ruck adds, survey results indicated for “Phase One,” only 25 kilometres of snow routes were plowed. “Fifty per cent of respondents were happy with the service level and how quickly we were there and how clean we got the roads.”
Parked cars along snow route areas are still a big challenge when snowplows are out in full force. “We have these large plows trying to manoeuvre around them,” says Ruck.
In the past, courtesy tickets were distributed to educate residents not to park along designated snow route areas after a declaration is made. Over 700 courtesy tickets were issued after a few previous snow events.
“Next week, if we declare a snow route, we would like to ask people to keep in mind there will be real parking tickets issued and they are $50. It’s important people move their cars,” says Ruck.
With temperatures being less wintery as of late, Ruck says every penny saved in snow removal per year is put back into City coffers. “We have deficits from previous years, so the money is not lost or gets spent elsewhere. This year, it has been an average winter, it seems like. We had a lot of snow events in January and February.”
“Because we were able to plow those snow routes,” adds Ruck. “We didn’t have to do any snow removal where we use graders and trucks to haul it all away. We saved a lot of money. We will be presenting those numbers to council because it is now real event data.”
Ruck notes the City’s transportation budget is $3.6 million. “There’s a small budget for parks, they clear the pathways and there’s also a small budget allocated to shovelling out bus shelters.”