‘Facing a new reality’

West Island cities pressed to clear icy, snowy streets

It can take days for Montreal to dig out from a blizzard.

While inner-city streets often become clogged after a major snowfall, most suburban roads are cleared relatively quickly.

With less traffic and fewer vehicles parked on West Island streets, snow plows can clear the streets quickly compared to city boroughs like Plateau-Mont-Royal and Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Damede-Grâce.

As of Feb. 15, 171 centimetres of snow had fallen on Montreal, eclipsing last year’s winter total of 169 cm.

Snow clearing and removal efforts have tested municipalities across the island, but some are more effective than others.

The city of Pointe-Claire uses teams of both private and public workers to clear its streets and sidewalks.

“To ensure effective snow removal throughout our territory, we have a private contractor serving the industrial sector, while our employees clear snow in the residential sector,” said city spokesperson Marie-Pier Paquette-Séguin.

“This means that operations can be carried out simultaneously and performances can easily be compared.”

Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle said snow clearing is one of the “major services” it provides to local citizens.

“I must admit though, it is simpler (here) than in Montreal because we have a no-parking law in the winter for overnight. So when there is a storm we start working around midnight, between midnight and 2 a.m. depending on the storm, and we can rapidly go through our city.”

He said the municipality deploys about eight to 10 trucks to clear snow from approximately 125 kilometres of roads and another 30 km of sidewalks.

Bourelle said towing parked cars is not a common occurrence in Beaconsfield. “If we have to, we’ll have it towed, but it’s not a major problem for us.”

Bourelle said his city has had to use heavy graters this winter because of icy conditions.

“All of us are facing a new reality because of climate change,” he said.

“There is a lot more rain and freezing rain, mixed with snow. I don’t need to tell you it makes for very icy streets. And on some streets you end up with a layer of ice and we’ve had to use graters to remove the ice, which makes it more challenging.”

By mid-February, Bourelle said Beaconsfield’s crews had already spread as much salt on its roads and sidewalks as all of last winter. “We’re over 1,500 tonnes now,” he said. “That’s about the limit we would normally use for the whole winter.”

Andrew Duffield, head of public works for Beaconsfield, said the city has a “White Road Policy,” which calls for a strategic use of abrasives.

“It means we prioritize the road conditions on our arteries and collectors, hills, curves and sidewalks by spreading salt and abrasives as required. And on our secondary and tertiary roads we apply salt and abrasives at the stop signs but not through out the length of the street,” Duffield said.

“This allows us to greatly reduce the amount of salt we use, and the impact on the environment. In the event, of an ice storm like we experienced over the holidays, we apply salt and abrasives throughout our entire road network.”

Bourelle said Beaconsfield residents have come to expect effective snow clearing.

“We have very demanding residents so we have to be very good at it. Otherwise we’ll hear about it from our citizens,” he said with a laugh.