Regina drivers to watch for snow route parking ban in effect

The City of Regina says it could take weeks to clear all neighbourhood streets after getting the heaviest snowfall in five years.

The storm is expected to wrap Tuesday with a total of more than 25 centimetres – around 10 inches – of snow in the Queen City.

According to the city’s manager of winter maintenance, Chris Warren, that’s the most snow since November 2012.

As of Monday morning, 26 graders, 11 plow trucks and three front-end loaders were out clearing snow.

While crews were in “storm mode” — meaning they focused on major roadways — most of Monday, the city announced it will be moving into a systematic plow by evening.

The systematic plow means the city will once again clear the main roads, but will then move onto other roads.

“We would put a schedule out to the public, let them know this area’s going to be done on this day and things like that as best we can,” Warren said.

Crews are expected to begin to clear residential streets on Thursday, which could take a week or two to complete.

The City of Regina announced the snow routes pilot project will be in effect for Tuesday morning beginning at 6 a.m. As such, a parking ban will put in place for certain areas which include:

• Victoria Avenue between Broad Street and Winnipeg Street
• Winnipeg Street between Victoria Avenue and College Avenue
• College Avenue between Winnipeg Street and Arcola Avenue

Blue signs are up to alert drivers where parking isn’t allowed.

“We actually did another systematic plow early December and we did issue a snow ban and we did issue some tickets,” Warren said.

“We’ll put out the parking ban and when we go to do the clearing of those streets, if there’s cars on the streets we will be issuing the tickets.”

He said they do have the option to tow cars if they don’t adhere to the parking bans, but said the decision was made to not use that during the pilot project.

Warren said the snow shouldn’t affect things like garbage pickup.