Snow-plowing upgrades would Cost taxpayers millions
City councillors who last winter asked about the cost of improving snow clearing after fielding angry calls from residents stranded in their driveways are suddenly experiencing sticker shock.
A new review of winter maintenance says it would cost millions to make enhancements intended to: get to residential side streets quicker after a snow storm; lower the accumulation requirements for residential streets and remove the icy crud called windrows left by the plows at the foot of your driveway. And if Windsor wants to adopt the same tops-in-the-province snow clearing enjoyed in the City of Vaughan, the winter maintenance budget would triple, to a whopping $14.6 million annually from the current $4.9 million. For that, plows would start working on residential streets after just two inches of snowfall instead of Windsor’s current four inches, and both sidewalks and driveway windrows would be cleared by municipal crews.
Another possible improvement — doing all roads at once instead of the current pecking order where crews tackle main roads before moving on to side streets — would cost an extra $6 million. Even removing windrows would be pricey, totalling around $2.8 million annually after all the costs are figured in. Ward 10 Coun. Paul Borrelli had asked for the costing on windrows last February, citing how seniors were literally trapped in their homes because they couldn’t shovel the heavy buildup to get out of their driveways.
Ward 9 Coun. Hilary Payne asked for the costs of plowing primary roads and side streets simultaneously.
A few months earlier, Ward 7 Coun. Irek Kusmierczyk asked for a report on the costs of enhancing snow clearing services, comparing Windsor’s services to other municipalities in Ontario.
“We now have the figures,” said Borrelli, who described the costs as big numbers. “And I couldn’t say right now I’d go for anything in particular, because it’s a big debate we have to have on this one.” Payne said the $6-million price tag for his suggested solution is “simply not acceptable.”
The way it works now, the city has 25 trucks servicing 23 primary routes that include expressway, arterials and collector roads. Those 25 trucks go into residential areas when the main roads are cleared and the snow has stopped, and are joined by private contractors with 50 to 60 pieces of equipment. This system ran into trouble last winter when a series of snowstorms required city plows to return time after time to the main roads, leaving side streets unplowed.
To do the main routes and residential roads simultaneously as Payne suggested would require an extra 50 plow trucks and operators, according to the report.
“It’s still a very serious problem,” Payne said of the blocked residential roads. “But the cost is something, I just can’t see it fitting in to the overall city budget. Six million is a lot.”
The review compares snow clearing services at an array of Ontario cities, including Vaughan (population 306,000) which spends $10.2 million annually, Ottawa (population 934,243) which spends $68.3 million, and London (population 383,822) which spends $14.1 million. It doesn’t make any recommendations on whether services in Windsor should be enhanced. “Basically, we can do whatever council directs us to do, but it’s just a matter of the impact on the budget,” said city engineer Mark Winterton. Adding $4 million to the city ’s budget translates roughly into a one per cent tax increase, so providing a service like Vaughan’s (an extra $9.7 million) would mean a 2.5 per cent tax hike.
At least two people running for council in the Oct. 22 election have made improved snow clearing one of the planks in their platforms. Lisa Valente, running in Ward 8, said plows rarely make it into the court where she lives near Jefferson Boulevard and Tecumseh Road. She and her neighbours end up late for work.
“They are not coming in and they are not clearing my court, and I know that for a fact because I’m out there with my neighbours shovelling it,” she said.
Gary Kaschak, who’s also running in Ward 8, said he gets “magnificent” service, perhaps because he lives on a bus route. “But I see the snow plows going down our street eight to 10 times and they really don’t need to that much,” he said, suggesting that plows should devote more time to the side streets. One possible enhancement that is more affordable is changing the accumulation requirements, according to Payne. Currently, the plows don’t go into residential areas until there is at least four inches from a single snowfall event. That means there could be a three-inch snowfall, followed by another three inches, followed by another three inches, and the plows wouldn’t come. The report says that changing that requirement so that the plows go in once total accumulation reaches four inches would cost about $1.5 million extra annually. “That’s do-able,” said Payne. “It would improve the situation on local streets and it would send the signal that council is listening.”