Edmonton's slow snow removal blamed on staff, budget shortages

The City of Edmonton fell short of hitting its target to clear snow and ice from roads and multi-use paths this past winter, a new city report released Thursday shows.

Money and staff shortages are mostly to blame, city managers said following the release of the report "Snow and Ice Control: Options to Increase Service Standards." 

Eddie Robar, manager of fleet and facility services, said the city has a staffing shortage for trained operators. 

"We put out on average about 57 trucks out on the road each winter snow event, and we should be putting about 100 on the road," he said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. 

City crews completed on average 76 per cent of arterial roads within 36 hours after a snowfall, which is the current standard. 

Collector roads and bus routes are supposed to reach bare pavement within 48 hours and the city only accomplished this 37 per cent of the time.  

Crews cleared 60 per cent of residential roads and alleys within the target of 7-9 days once the blading cycle started.

Robar said staff shortages can be attributed to a combination of factors in the past five years.

"The pandemic. The changes in budget but also the loss of budget when it comes to things like automated enforcement going down," Robar said. 

The city's snow and ice budget took about a $5 million hit when it received less revenue from the photo radar program last year, he said.

The city's mobility network — roads, sidewalks, parking lots and multi-use paths — has also increased by nearly 20 per cent since 2016, the report says. 

The information released Thursday is available mainly because snow clearing equipment was fitted with GPS trackers this past season, the city says. 

Craig McKeown, manager of the city's Parks and Roads branch, said his team recommends the city increase the snow clearing budget, which for 2011-22 was a total of $57.1 million. 

"To clear to bare pavement within 36 hours, we don't have the resources to do that right now," McKeown said at the news conference.