LET IT SNOW
City plows hit the streets
There’s no denying it any longer: It’s the season for snowfall in Windsor-Essex. Local residents only needed to look outside their windows on Monday to see some cold, white reality.
Thankfully, the winter weather is no surprise to those in municipal departments tasked with dealing with such realities.
“Everything on our end is ready to go,” said Dwayne Dawson, the City of Windsor’s executive director of operations. “We’re prepared.”
Dawson said the city’s snow removal fleet was out on the streets on Monday — 17 contracted vehicles and four city-owned vehicles for a total of 21 snowplows clearing Windsor roadways.
“We also have two smaller plows to do some of the more restrictive areas,” Dawson added.
Construction of the new salt dome in the city’s yard on Crawford Avenue is nearing completion. Dawson said he expects it to be operational by Friday. Until then, the city’s trucks have been replenishing their salt reserves at the yard on Central Avenue.
For those keen on seeing the progress of snow removal across the city, Dawson pointed to a new feature in the Open Data catalogue on the City of Windsor’s website: A map view of snowplow activity in almost real time.
Simply visit opendata.citywindsor.ca and click the section entitled Winter Control - Snowplow Activity. The live map shows snowplow traffic over the past four hours. Overlapping snowplow traffic darkens routes on the maps.
Super nerds for data can even download weekly information showing when a vehicle has plowed, engaged its extra plow wing, or used its salt spreader.
“Our stuff is updating continuously,” Dawson said.
Meanwhile, the County of Essex boasted of its preparedness with its own winter control program: four depots handling 18 plow routes across the county, covering a total of 720 kilometres of roadway.
The county is particularly proud of its two-step approach to prevent slippery conditions: an anti-icing technique involving direct application of brine to dry roadways, and pre-wetting of salt for maximum effectiveness when spread.
On average, the County of Essex spreads 18,000 tonnes of salt every winter, and spends around $2.6 million to deal with 70 winter weather events per year.
Despite such measures, the county urges all motorists to take precautions and adjust their driving habits accordingly when dealing with cold, snowy, and icy conditions.
“Winter travel calls for extra care even under normal weather conditions,” suggests a public statement by the County of Essex on Monday.
Winter travel calls for extra care even under normal weather conditions.