Snow route parking ban in effect
With more storms coming, crews begin clearing residential streets
Calgary’s wintry weekend wallop will see the city impose a snow route parking ban Monday.
After a massive Saturday storm left city streets buried under thick blankets of snow, resulting in both directions of Deerfoot Trail being shuttered for several hours, city snow-clearing crews deployed most of their fleet to Calgary’ s major thorough fares, Priority 1 routes that handle the city’s largest traffic volumes.
Starting at 9 a.m. Monday, city graders and sanders will turn their attention to Priority 2 routes, which will require vehicles to be removed from marked snow routes for 72 hours, or until the city cancels the parking ban.
Any vehicles that remain parked during the ban could land the owners parking tickets or potentially be towed. Snow routes are marked throughout the city by blue signs with a white snowflake.
“Calgarians who live on the snow routes are asked to move their vehicles while the parking ban is in effect,” said John Bolger, maintenance manager for the city’s roads department.
“This will help city crews effectively clear snow from curb to curb and get Calgarians moving as quickly and as efficiently as possible.” The fine for violating the snow route parking ban is $75.
However, this falls to $40 if the ticket is paid within 10 days.
It costs $50 if the ticket is paid within 30 days. Between 10 and 15 cm of snow fell throughout parts of Calgary Friday and Saturday, said Environment Canada meteorologist Amanda Prysizney.
Saturday was a record-setting day for Calgary, as the snowfall totals eclipsed the previous mark set in 1948 of 9.4 cm for Feb. 3.
Environment Canada issued a snowfall warning on Sunday afternoon for Calgary, with to 15 cm expected throughout the day and overnight.
Prysizney said another snowfall is expected later this week, with at least 10 cm likely to fall from Wednesday evening to Friday morning.
The weekend snowfall caused chaos on Calgary streets, with police responding to 374 collisions — 43 resulting in injuries — between 6 a.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday. EMS transported seven adults and one teen to hospital from accidents along Deerfoot Trail. All the victims were reportedly in stable condition.
Bolger said crews have been working since Friday to clear snow off city roads, and all resources and equipment remain in use, running 24 hours a day.
Any snowfall of two cm or more activates the city’ s seven-days now clearing plan. Within the first 24 hours, the city clears Priority 1 roads—those that see about 20,000 vehicles per day, such as Glenmore, Sarcee and Macleod trails.
In the first 48 hours, crews also clear Priority 2 roads, which include key bus routes such as Kensington Road and Acadia Drive, and are the focus of the parking ban.
As there are many homes along Priority 2 routes, this can often create logistical problems for implementing a parking ban, which is why the city didn’t issue one during the major snowfall just prior to the holidays in December, a spokesperson said.
The city focuses on ramps and residential intersection sand playground son Day 3 of the seven-day plan, while knocking down ruts and laying traction material inresidential neighbourhood sin the remaining days. Afresh snowfall could interrupt the seven-day cycle, forcing the city to start from scratch.
Outside the city, a woman was killed late Saturday evening in a two-vehicle collision on eastbound Hwy. 1 at Range Rd. 284, RCMP said. The cause of the crash remained under investigation.
Last year, the city issued a ban on Feb. 6 following another sizable snowfall. The city issued 2,759 tickets and towed 11 vehicles over that ban.