Drivers left parked on snow routes warned for now

The City of Regina thought its first run through clearing newly marked snow routes went pretty well over this past weekend.

“Right off the bat we saw a 20 per cent reduction in the time it took to do that plow on a five-kilometre roadway,” said the city’s manager of winter maintenance Chris Warren.

Portions of Winnipeg Street, College Avenue and Victoria Avenue are being tested this winter season, with 24-hour parking bans in place after a snowfall so that plows and graters can clear streets quicker and more efficiently.

The first opportunity for crews to test that pilot came Sunday morning into Monday morning.

Warren estimated it took crews about an hour to clear streets on the snow route. However, they still felt they needed the 24-hour ban in place to mimic the possibility of this program eventually being expanded.

“The intent is that in the future we might have 100 kilometres of roads that we might need to plow and it might take us that full 24 hours,” he said.

A total of 53 warning leaflets were handed out to those left on streets. Warren said they previously made the decision to focus on education and communication during the first snow clearing event of the pilot project.

Not only were trucks able to complete the work faster, Warren said streets were cleared from gutter to gutter, creating a nice, clear path that may not have been possible in prior years based on vehicles parked on streets.

During the next big snowfall, the city intends to ticket those vehicles that remain on the road. Fines will cost drivers $120.