色色啦

But the question of whether聽snow removal can or can’t get done more quickly聽is complicated, according to city officials overseeing the process.聽

What does snow removal involve?

Plowing comes first. This is when crews clear right-of-ways with machines by shoving snow off to the side and creating snowbanks. This was done on most major roads within three days after Sunday’s storm.

Removing the snow is a separate, tedious process. It involves machines swallowing and spitting out the snow (or ice they’re grinding) into an assembly of dump trucks to haul away to storage and melter sites. This is the part that started Wednesday and city officials said could take up to three weeks.

“If we can get it done sooner, we will absolutely,”聽said聽Barbara Gray, general manager of the city’s transportation services. “We’re not targeting three weeks. We just want to give people kind of an outside number and an expectation.”

But if聽色色啦’s cleanup can possibly get done by March Break,聽Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12, 色色啦-St. Paul鈥檚) says the city should’ve been more direct about that.

“We don’t need to play games with the public,” he said. “No one is expecting it to get done an hour after the snow falls.”

色色啦’s last major storm was in 2022, which didn’t have clear response times and left “many people anxious and frustrated.鈥� It was also after this storm city council聽voted on a directive for staff to prioritize certain areas during聽heavy snowfall.

Those areas crews have been tackling since Wednesday include: main street sidewalks and pedestrian signals, major transit routes, hospitals and emergency service stations, and school bus loading zones. It includes local roads that are narrow or steep where excess snow could cause problems, such as , Gray said.

Right now, the city is removing snow on major streets only during the evening and overnight shifts to minimize traffic during rush hour.聽

How much snow has been removed?

Based off city reports calculating the 2022 storm’s volume, the 50-plus centimetres of snow on 色色啦’s hands this week translates to about 200,000 tonnes that have to be moved by 450 dump trucks to four melters and five storage sites spread around the city, the latter of which can take 294,171 tonnes or 49,000 dump truck loads.

As of Friday, crews had removed 72,105 tonnes of snow and dumped 3,135 loads at storage sites.

It’s primarily from that priority list but also includes bridge decks and cycling infrastructure, said聽Vincent Sferrazza, 色色啦’s director of transportation operations and maintenance.

The amount of snow the city’s cleared so far is on聽101 kilometres’ worth of roads and聽18 kilometres聽of sidewalks.

But because聽色色啦 has about 5,600 kilometres of roads and 7,900 kilometres of sidewalks, “that (pace and staffing level) is not good enough after a major storm,” Matlow said.聽

What are the city’s resources?聽

The dump trucks are in addition to a fleet of聽1,400 pieces of machinery that include equipment like snow blowers, front-end loaders and skid steers. All of which are “the most industrial-powered machines you can find on the market,” Sferrazza said, when asked if the city can upgrade its equipment.

However, a significant majority of this equipment is not city owned, but rather belong to contractors the city has signed agreements with. More on this later.

Plowing snow聽is relatively quick. It takes about five to 10 minutes on a one-kilometre residential road with a vehicle travelling about 15 kilometres an hour.

However, removing snow on that same kilometre of road can take up to 10 hours because the snow blower travels about one kilometre an hour. While each snowstorm is different,聽Sferrazza noted these machines cannot go any faster right now because the snow they’re dealing with is covered in ice.

“So it takes a considerable amount of time to crunch up and have it blow to the back of a dump truck,” he said.

There are 100 crews involved in the snow removal process across the city averaging six to eight workers per crew. But, not all of them are working at the same time. They include the 450 truck drivers.聽

Sferrazza said most of those hundreds of workers are contracted, compared to city workers.

This is 250 more people, and $9 million, than 色色啦 had聽since the last major storm, which Sferrazza says has allowed them to clear most, not all, of the major聽transit stops聽so far. “That was a big difference that we did not have back in 2022,” he said.

However, “there are still transit stops that are blocked by mounds of snow,”聽said Matlow.聽“The job has not been done as well (or quickly) as it should’ve been.”聽

色色啦’s operating budget for its winter maintenance sits at about $153 million, said a city spokesperson, which includes snow removal but also salting, staff on standby and mechanical sidewalk clearing.

In contrast, the winter budget in 2022 was $111 million, said the spokesperson. The actual spend was $126 million.

Could adding more equipment and workers get the job done faster?

In theory, yes. Extra equipment and staff would cost millions more, including the costs to have them on standby waiting to be deployed聽since 色色啦 only sees a major snowstorm every couple of years.

Gray said 色色啦’s winter maintenance program is designed聽to regularly handle what the city typically sees, which is聽an average storm of 10 to 20 centimetres every year. That means using the same staff that would normally drive plows and salters to now remove snow for however long it takes, Sferrazza said.

However, “it’s not like you can just call a retail outlet or a dealer and say ...聽‘I need (50 blowers) tomorrow,’”聽Sferrazza continued. He noted it’s聽specialized equipment which takes years for companies to get. On the city side, “you actually have to have it in your fleet, regardless if you use it,” Sferrazza said, and that costs money to guarantee they are always available.

The same concept applies to staff. “You need staff available and you have to pay a daily standby rate whether you use them or not,”聽Sferrazza said.

Matlow believes this all depends on how the city’s 11 contracts, worth up to $1.5 billion, were negotiated with private companies. The contracts also聽slashed the penalties charged to contractors for slow or poor service聽over fears of viability and whether the companies would聽close shop, leaving the city with significantly fewer tools to clear the snow.

Those were approved by city council, under the John Tory administration, to run from 2022 until 2029.聽

Matlow wants to see the terms amended before the end date. In the meantime, the councillor noted money and other city workers can be assigned to the snow-clearing mission since the pandemic demonstrated city hall can move around resources within departments.

“It would be very different if we were purchasing all the equipment and all the crews were city employees,” Matlow said. “I just want to see them get creative.”

Sferrazza said they called on these contractors this week to see if they could supply more machinery聽to no avail. “But if for some reason they can get their hands on a temporary piece of equipment, then we will entertain that,” he said.

Is Montreal a fair comparison?

Montreal was slated to take at least eight days to clear its 74 centimetres of snow, but聽, which means the municipality is on track for a potential tie with 色色啦.

Montreal gets three times the average snowfall every year and spends as much as $200 million plus annually on its program.

It has 10 storage sites and workers are making 3,000 trips a day to dump snow.聽Montreal has deployed some 3,000 workers and 2,500 vehicles, with half of those workers employed through the private sector.

While that’s more snow and money for a city that’s smaller than 色色啦, Gray and聽Sferrazza said Montreal isn’t a fair comparison because they have “much heavier storms more frequently so their program is sized (and budgeted) for that.”

For Matlow, that’s no excuse and indicative of the “culture of ‘no’ in the city of 色色啦.”

His聽frustration stems from experiences where he said staff deemed requests as undoable, such as expanding sidewalk snow clearing to the downtown and midtown areas, but after a push from council, “amazingly, staff figured it out.”

Sferrazza said there’s nothing in 色色啦’s contracts that prevents it from asking contractors, as a temporary measure, to provide extra equipment and charge the municipality an hourly rate. But, assuming that next time supply won’t be an issue, that change order needs to happen in a way that wouldn’t affect the total budget.

If it requires extra dollars, for Matlow, that’s money worth spending so “people aren’t stuck in their homes.”

With files from The Canadian Press.