Parking ban gets some traction
The city’s first winter parking ban of the season — otherwise known as S’No parking — had some success during this week’s snowstorm.
But St. Catharines still has a long way to go to convince drivers to move their vehicles off of the streets when it snows.
“We have had a noticeable response to the cars on the street so that’s definitely a good thing, but we are nowhere near the compliance we need it to be,” said Darrell Smith, St. Catharines’ senior operations manager.
In November, city council approved going ahead with a public education campaign to convince drivers not to park on streets during snowstorms rather than start issuing tickets this season.
Under the program, the city makes a “S’No parking declaration” when it anticipates a storm and residents in turn are supposed to get their vehicles off the road. Declarations are made on the city’s website, through social media and in news releases.
Mayor Walter Sendzik said he noticed residents in his downtown neighbourhood who normally park on the street move their vehicles onto their driveways, so people are paying attention.
The goal is to get people into the habit of moving their vehicles every time there’s snow.
“People are listening because I’ve noted it in our neighbourhood,” Sendzik said. “But there’s still more to be done, because every car that’s parked on the road is still going to create that obstacle for a truck that’s trying to clear the roads as much as possible.”
Smith said clearing streets is just easier without vehicles parked on them.
“It’s like night and day,” he said. “It’s almost like when there are cars on the street you’re blindfolded.”
Smith said because snowplow trucks are massive and have blades, drivers have to be careful when they’re pushing snow not to harm cars and have to move away from the vehicles. It slows them down completely, from an estimated 10 to 15 miles an hour to two or three miles an hour.
There are some areas of the city where no residential parking is available, but for areas that do have driveways, Smith said residents have an opportunity to get vehicles off the road and make a difference.
“When you have a huge multi-day event like this where your resources are taxed to the max anyway, every minute you can save makes a huge difference in being able to provide the level of service we can for the city,” he said.
Monday’s 72-hour S’No Parking declaration was the first for the 201617 winter season.
Environment Canada said St. Catharines, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls saw 30 to 45 centimetres of snow during the storm, which moved out of Niagara Wednesday during the late morning and midday.
Meteorologist Geoff Coulson said because of blowing and drifting snow, it was difficult to tabulate the exact amounts.
“People have been sending in pictures from the Niagara Peninsula where it almost made it look like the drifts were waves on the road,” he said. “A plow would go by but the snow was so loose that soon after that, if you were in an exposed area you had the drifts building up again.”
The last March in which that much snow has fallen was in 2008, when 45.6 centimetres was recorded at Brock University over March 7 and 8.
“It’s disappointing for pretty much everybody given the way February was,” Coulson said. “We had those temperatures getting well into the double digits, we had sunshine, people were in shorts and T-shirts for a couple of those days and they thought spring must be around the corner and then this happens to kind of remind them March can very much be a winter month.”
Spring isn’t on the near horizon, other than on the calendar.
Spring officially arrives next Monday, but Coulson said there will be winter-type weather towards the end of March.
April could bring warmer than normal conditions though.
St. Catharines had trucks running 24 hours through the snowstorm, including 21 large snowplow and sanders, four small trucks, five sidewalk machines, 13 backhoes or front-end loaders with plow blades and hand crews.
Smith said during the heaviest part of the storm, drivers would finish a route and have to start it again just to keep up with what was coming down and blowing around.
“If it’s a small storm you can get ahead of it but something like this you can’t,” Smith said Wednesday before noon. “So we’re just trying to maintain the roads in as passable condition as possible.”
Crews started hitting the secondary roads on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. because there was so much snow accumulation, there was a worry that they wouldn’t be able to push it for much longer. But by noon Wednesday not all secondary roads had been cleared and Smith said they probably wouldn’t all be completed until 24 hours after snowfall stops.
“I understand it’s an inconvenience. I know that,” he said. “But I am asking that residents be patient. We will get to all the roads and we will get them cleared.”
While many services and businesses were closed Tuesday as the region was hit by the brunt of
How the snowstorm affects garbage collection
Residents whose normal collection day is Wednesday will have their garbage collected by today, Thursday’s normal collection will be collected by Friday and Friday’s normal collection will be collected on Friday. Residents whose normal collection day was Tuesday will have their garbage and recyclables collected on Saturday. The region asks that residents still place their garbage and recycling curbside on their regular collection day by 7 a.m. and to make sure the containers are visible and accessible. Containers should not be placed in or on top of snow banks. If it hasn’t been picked up by 7 p.m., residents are asked to bring in their material from the curb overnight and then put it back out for 7 a.m. the next day.
a heavy winter storm, Wednesday’s steady snowfall didn’t result in many closures.
Niagara Regional Police responded to 71 reports of collisions on municipal roads between midnight Tuesday and early Wednesday afternoon.
“Certainly that number is higher than normal due to the extreme weather conditions,” Const. Phil Gavin said.
Crews with CAA Niagara were also kept busy Wednesday.
“The day after a winter storm is typically when we’re really busy,” said Bill Willard, CAA Niagara vice-president of automotive services. “As of noon today we’d received 311 calls, 50 per cent more than a typical full day’s activity and we’ve only reached the lunch hour.”
Most calls for service were from members who were struck in snowbanks and ditches.
“We can’t stress enough that people need to drive according to the weather conditions.”
Meanwhile, fire officials are asking that residents shovel snow from areas around fire hydrants and to makes sure there is no snow or ice buildup blocking vent pipes for furnaces or other appliances.