Weekend snow leads to seasonal parking ban, traffic snarls

A seasonal parking ban will remain in place until the city declares it over as city crews work to clean up the mess left by heavy snowfall that began Friday.

The parking ban was effective at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

“By Sunday evening front-end loaders will be clearing lanes,” said Janet Tecklenborg, the city’s director of infrastructure operations, in a Saturday news release. “We are asking residents to remove their cars from major, arterial, collector and marked roads.”

The city received more than 10 cm of snow, which is why a parking ban was put in place. The ban prohibits vehicles from parking on bus routes and other roads that have a seasonal parking sign.

A ticket results in a $100 fine, while the fine for towing is $120 plus an $80 fee for storage of the vehicle.

Tecklenborg said the city aims to clear bike lanes within 24 hours of a snowfall event as part of a city pilot project.

“They (bike lanes) are kind of the main way for bikers to get downtown, and we try to treat them similar to arterials based on the pilot this year,” said Tecklenborg.

The pilot project also includes spraying certain roads with a calcium chloride solution between 24 and 36 hours before a snowfall. Tecklenborg said her department is still collecting data on the pilot project and will bring results back to city council in the spring.

A map of roadways that will be included in the pilot program is available on the City of Edmonton’s website.

The city issued a parking ban last weekend which resulted in 1,318 tickets being issued and 168 vehicles towed during the two-day parking ban from Jan. 27-29.

“We have it on buses right now, that the parking ban has been declared, it’s on our signs that we have distributed throughout the city and it’s on our website so we try really hard to let everyone know it’s in effect,” said Tecklenborg.

The city had one parking ban in 2016 and 2017 and three parking bans in 2015.

Based on snow and ice policy, the city will leave five cm of snow on the ground. For residential plowing, the city will keep windrows to less than 30 cm. The city plans to return to residential blading on Monday.

The snowfall created some mayhem on the streets. Between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. Saturday there were 38 traffic collisions reported to the Edmonton police, including 33 property damage collisions, one injury collision and four reported hit and runs.

From 11:01 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday there were six injury collisions, 12 hitand-run collisions and 92 property damage collisions.

These crashes come after more than 180 collisions reported to police Friday before rush hour, with 151 property damage collisions, 14 injury collisions and 18 hit-and-run crashes reported between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.