At least one local business owner wants to see Prince Albert’s downtown given higher priority for snow removal after two blizzards blanketed the community over the past week.
Business owner Ron Horn said customers and delivery drivers won’t make the trip downtown following heavy snowfall because they fear getting stuck trying to park. He said that makes it difficult to do business.
“They (the City) don’t seem to think it’s important for people to be able to drive downtown,” Horn said in an interview with the Daily Herald.
“Unless you’ve got a 4-wheel drive, you don’t know whether you should be parking or not.”
Horn owns Fresh Air Experience in Prince Albert’s downtown and said slow snow removal has been a problem for years in the area. He added that he understands if crews can’t get downtown right away, but said it’s unacceptable for there to be so much snow left after several days.
City snow removal crews operate on a priority system. The City has 12 streets marked as Emergency Routes, meaning they get attention first. Crews are instructed to keep clearing these routes until snowfall is complete.
Streets marked as city transit routes are given level two priority, with school zones and the downtown marked as level three, and residential streets marked level four.
Horn said the City should bump the downtown core up higher in the priority list. He said it’s embarrassing to have non-residents drive downtown and see the snow piled in parking lanes, and added that the city’s parking meter revenue would likely suffer because shoppers don’t want to park in the area.
Horn said he’s not the only business owner concerned about the lack of snow removal, but others doubt anything will change.
“The level of frustration is high,” he said.
Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District (PADBID) co-executive director Rhonda Trusty said PADBID has reached out to the city many times about the lack of quick snow removal. Like Trusty, she said the downtown should be higher on the city’s priority list.
“We’ve got three post-secondary institutions. We’ve got our daycares in the downtown, our businesses, patients trying to get to their doctors appointments, bloodwork. These are all issues that people face and struggle with in getting to their appointments (and) to just following through with daily life, so it is a struggle,” Trusty said.
Trusty called the lack of snow removal a “habitual problem” in the downtown. She said the organization has offered alternatives, but the City has elected to stay with the status quo, which is wait until city crews are free or outside contractors finish their other contracts.
“We are on the bus route and bus routes are a priority,” Trusty said. “I would actually like us to be bumped up to a higher priority because our transit station is in the downtown and we are the main route.
“I’m actually not really sure why we’ve never been considered, (or) even just looked at different alternatives until they can do the lift. To at least even have one lane cleared would be, I think, a step in the right direction.”
City of Prince Albert Public Works director Jeff Da Silva said there are many factors that go into how quickly streets get cleared, and not all of them are in the City’s control. He said the recent weather caused problems because a second snowstorm arrived after crews had already finished emergency routes. That forced them to re-clear those streets before moving on to other areas like the downtown.
Da Silva said the city is also limited in how quickly they can bring in outside contractors to help lift snow out of areas like the downtown.
“It’s not a set contract where we have first dibs on those contractors coming in,” Da Silva said. “It’s based mainly on availability of the contractors, and a lot of these contractors will already have existing snow clearing contracts for parking lots and maybe various other snow areas around the city.
“Typically, immediately following a storm is when they’re the busiest and we don’t necessarily get access to them.”
Prince Albert City Council last reviewed priority snow removal levels two years ago, but opted to make minor changes, Da Silva said. He added that the Public Works Department is open to re-visiting the issue with downtown representatives, but they haven’t heard back “with any definitive answer.”
He said challenge isn’t grading the roads, which can be done quickly, it’s finding a way to remove the snow, something that needs to be done when the area isn’t being used, like overnight or early Sunday morning.
He said the City would also consider sweeping the snow to one side of the street. That would reduce Central Avenue to one lane of traffic, but would allow visitors to park.
“That wouldn’t really necessarily be moving them up the priority list. It would just give us the ability to come and do quick maintenance without having to pull our crew off of emergency routes and transit routes, and that could give them a more sooner winter maintenance scenario,” Da Silva said.
