Saturday snowfall not affecting city snow clearing schedule

Another drop of snow this weekend in Saskatoon isn’t expected to alter citywide snow clearing plans.

Since Sunday’s massive snowfall nearly brought the city to a standstill, more than 450 workers — made up of city crews and private contractors — have been clearing roads across the city.

More snow fell on Wednesday before another dusting on Saturday morning.

Transportation manager Terry Schmidt is confident the city’s current schedule to have crews in every neighbourhood by Nov. 20 remains on track as long as the weather can hold up.

“When I woke up and saw that there was snow, I thought: ‘My, this is relentless.’ We make progress and then these (snowfalls) cause little setbacks,” Schmidt said.

“So far we’re making good progress, but as you can see today, it all depends on the weather.”

Schmidt said the city’s priority remains on clearing residential streets to keep as much of the city as accessible as possible.

By Saturday evening, 29 neighbourhoods — roughly 45 per cent of the city — will have “basic mobility” restored.

Snow is expected to move into the entrance of driveways, and residents are asked not to undo the work by throwing any more snow onto the street.

The city is also advising children not to play on the large snow piles around Saskatoon as the weight of the snow could be dangerous.

City manager Jeff Jorgenson thanked crews and contractors for using every piece of machinery available to get the city back on track.

“This is not what we needed today,” he said. “Our main focus continues to be residential streets.”

Part of that focus is to not only keep roads safe to travel for a typical front-wheel-drive car but to also keep roads as safe as possible for the rest of the season.

“The risk of significant ruts is really high,” Jorgenson said. “What we risk if we don’t deal with the snowpack on the streets what can happen is it ruts… if it goes back into a very cold situation, boy, those ruts are a lot more treacherous than they are even now.”

Jorgenson said a late snowfall in 2013 followed by two weeks of cold temperatures created massive ruts across the city to make for a difficult cleanup.

“Instead of pushing snow around, it was almost like we were fighting concrete,” he said.

The city’s plan to clear every road in the city hopes to try and avoid that scenario this winter.