‘It will take us a week to clean up after this storm’
The cleanup from what was being called “Snowmageddon” on social media is underway, with road crews starting to clear Priority 1 routes — such as Glenmore and Macleod trails — on Friday.
Tara Norton-Merrin, a city roads spokeswoman, said crews were about 50 per cent done Priority 1 routes as of 11 a.m. Friday.
“A lot of the Priority 1s are still snow covered, so we’ll be working throughout the day and night to get those … down to bare pavement in the through lanes, and add some material for tracking through the weekend,” Norton-Merrin said. “It will take us a week to clean up after this storm, so people need to be patient.”
A parking ban along all Priority 2 snow routes kicks in at 10 a.m. Saturday and could be in place for 72 hours to allow plows to clear bus routes and other secondary roads.
This will be Calgary’s second snow route parking ban in less than a week, and the Calgary Parking Authority said drivers who leave their cars parked on a snow route during the ban will be ticketed and towed.
The fine for violating the ban is $75, but that number drops to $40 if the ticket is paid within 10 days and $50 if the ticket is paid within 30 days.
Calgarians can visit Calgary.ca/ snow to find out if they live on a snow route, which are marked throughout the city by blue signs with a white snowflake.
Nearly 3,000 vehicles that remained parked on designated snow routes were ticketed between 9 a.m. on Monday and 7 a.m. Wednesday.
The Calgary Parking Authority said Calgarians can expect the same level of enforcement during this ban to help road crews clear the snow as quickly as possible.
“We really hope that the tickets that were handed out act as education for a lot of people,” said Norton-Merrin.
The city is also reminding residents and business owners to clear the sidewalks outside their homes and stores now that the snow has stopped falling.
Slick conditions around the city contributed to 241 collisions between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday, including a 40-vehicle pileup on Stoney Trail S.E. near the community of Cranston.
Another collision around 1 p.m. had drivers on westbound Glenmore Trail backed up from the Deerfoot Trail exit, all the way to 18th Street S.E.
Police say the majority of those crashes happened between 3 and 4 p.m. Of those crashes, only 13 involved injuries.
Outside the city, highways closed on Thursday due to a winter storm warning have started to reopen.
Traffic is moving again on the Trans-Canada Highway between Golden, B.C., and the Alberta bor- der. Highway 93 east of Radium, B.C., has also been reopened.
Southern Alberta just couldn’t seem to catch a break this week, as much of the southern and eastern parts of the province were put under an extreme cold weather warning on Friday.
Temperatures in some areas were expected to drop to −40 C onFriday. Airdrie, Strathmore, Cochrane and Lethbridge were only a handful of the communities under the warning, which was lifted by Environment Canada on Friday afternoon.