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Snow policy to be tweaked

A road trip around Ponoka with director of property services Stan Baliant last week proved at least one thing to CAO Brad Watson—the town’s snow clearing policy needs tweaking.

The two “almost got stuck once” as they drove residential streets in town, daring to traverse cul de sacs that are usually last on the list of streets cleared of snow because the bulbous streets are the most difficult for graders and dump trucks to get around.

After the latest snowfall the town crews took a different approach to clearing the streets to try to get traffic moving out of residential neighbourhoods faster.

That led to some head-scratching around town as streets that had been priorities moved down the list.

Watson said weaknesses in the priority system were evident when back-to-back heavy snowfalls are experienced. It can be a case where the top priority streets are cleared right away and just as crews are ready to move into residential neighbourhoods, there’s a big dump of snow and the crews go back to the top priorities again, leaving side streets for another day.

“We’re anxious to do better,” Watson said. “Our policy needs tweaking.”

His goal is to have council adopt a policy that assigns the equipment and manpower that gets routes cleared within two days so residents “can go anywhere they want in the community.”

The town needs more signs indicating when plows will move into neighbourhoods and cars need to be moved off the streets, Watson observed. The town has a grader with a gate to keep private driveways clear and might have to consider adding a skid steer loader to assist. Perhaps the town needs to be divided into quadrants

Snow removal has cost the Town of Ponoka more than $100,000 so far this year with at least next fall’s weather still to contend with. The $80,000 in reserve has been plowed through. Before passing its 2011 budget later this spring, council will need to consider replacing its reserve and settling on a new snow removal budget.

Watson said the town will solicit suggestions from residents on its www.ponoka.org website. “What can we do to do better?”

With a spring thaw imminent, Watson expects there will now be challenges with puddles and drainage. “That’s something we will have to be ready to deal with.”