SASKATOON — The city started removing snow from residential streets on Wednesday, Jan. 11, beginning in the neighbourhood of Nutana with Caswell Hill, City Park and Riversdale planned to start later this week.
This neighbourhood clean-up is in response to the snowstorms between Dec. 25 and 28 that resulted in 34 centimetres of snow. City and contractor graders undertook grading on all streets, including local streets, following the Roadways Emergency Response Plan.
Snow piles remaining from street grading will be removed to improve sight lines, clear sidewalks and open up on-street parking spaces. Neighbourhood streets will have some snowpack and some non-hazardous snow piles remaining.
While the snow piles are affecting safety and mobility in all neighbourhoods, the first neighbourhoods are those with narrow streets and high-density on-street parking.
As the first few neighbourhoods are completed and more contractor crews are hired, the city will be able to better estimate a schedule for the remaining neighbourhoods – please check saskatoon.ca/snow for updates.
This work is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete, which will be more accurately estimated once all crews are in place and work is in progress.
Residents will know when crews are coming to their neighbourhood when they see “No Parking” signs go up along their street.
The goal is to have these installed about 24 hours before the start of work. Residents will need to move their vehicles off the street in advance of snow operations or their vehicles will be towed to a nearby street.
If crews haven’t completed the snow removal on the same day as the parking restriction, residents can return to parking overnight from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. until crews return the next morning.
Other ways residents can help:
- Tell your family, friends, and neighbours about the snow removal plan and check saskatoon.ca/snow for more information.
- Obey work zone signs and leave space for crews and equipment to work, as they may not be able to see vehicles and people approaching.
- Keep kids off snow piles and do not build tunnels through snow piles. Not only will they be hidden from snow removal crews, but the piles can collapse, and the weight of that snow could be very dangerous.
Local street grading and snow removal are not part of our city's standard operations. Existing levels of service for winter maintenance will apply to future snow events unless the Roadways Emergency Response Plan needs to be activated.
In neighbourhoods, this means city snow crews are sent to local streets when ice rutting impedes mobility and reaches a depth of 15 centimetres (six inches).
The city and employees thank everyone for their kindness and patience as we all dig in together to clean up all this snow! Learn more about city-wide snow grading and removal at saskatoon.ca/snow.
Respect winter work zones for your safety and the safety of our workers. When it snows, please slow down, leave the extra room and watch for blue and amber flashing lights on road equipment. For more information visit saskatoon.ca/respectworkzones.
