Treacherously icy residential streets will be getting more attention from salt and plow crews in the coming days, the City of Vancouver promised at a news conference Tuesday.
All non-emergency construction work in the city has been put on pause so hundreds of additional staff can be deployed to address wintery conditions and related complications, engineering manager Jerry Dobrovolny said.
"They've been out salting, sanding and plowing streets throughout the city continuously, day shift, afternoon shift and graveyard shift," he told reporters.
Crews worked throughout the weekend, including the holiday Sunday, to clear main arterial roads after the city was hit with a blast of snow on New Year's Eve, but Dobrovolny said they normally only head to neighbourhood streets in response to safety complaints.
That's partly because the ice usually clears away on its own as temperatures fluctuate. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case this week.
"Typically we don't go in and clear the residential streets because there's so many more of them, and typically the weather breaks," Dobrovolny said.
"In the last week we had temperatures above zero, 3 degrees, and we had continuous rain. The expectation was that would start to break up a lot of the ice as it has in past years, but it didn't break up the ice this time."
With main routes cleared, the city has redeployed 150 workers and hired extra trucks to focus on residential areas along with the existing crews.
It's been an extraordinary year for wintery conditions, Dobrovolny said, and crews have used 7,000 tonnes of salt so far. That's compared to about 1,000 tonnes that was required for each of the previous two winters.
"We've used about seven times the typical winter already," Dobrovolny said, adding that there are no concerns about a salt shortage.
"Our salt supply is good, we've had shipments coming in regularly. We're expecting another shipment in the next day or two."
The city doesn't have an estimate for how much the snow response could end up costing, but said about $2.5 million was spent last month alone.
Apart from road clearing, about 115 extra workers have been sent to help clear out a backlog of garbage and green waste pickup, and 50 additional workers have been deployed to help enforce sidewalk bylaws.
Dobrovolny reminded property owners that they are expected to clear the areas around their building within 10 hours of snowfall. The city acknowledged some people have had trouble finding salt to buy, and said it will be making salt available at 10 fire halls across the city starting on Wednesday.
People are encouraged to try finding salt at hardware stores first, and to make a donation if they’re forced to obtain it from a fire hall.
Dobrovolny also acknowledged that a number of city-owned sites also remained icy on Tuesday, but promised staff are working to address the problem.
"The rules apply to the city as well as the public and businesses," he said. "We will clear all of our sites, that work is ongoing."
Vancouver generally tries to warn homeowners before issuing fines or heading to courts over uncleared sidewalks. Staff said there are currently 36 court applications against property owners who aren't dealing with sidewalks properly.
Fire halls that will be giving out salt are located at:
- 2801 Quebec St.
- 1475 W. 10th Ave.
- 1090 Haro St.
- 2460 Balaclava St.
- 4013 Prince Albert St.
- 2804 Venables St.
- 3003 E. 22nd Ave.
- 7070 Knight St.
- 4396 W. 12th Ave.
- 1005 W. 59th Ave.
