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Thursday, March 28, 2024
Home News Heavy snowfall causes delays to city transit service, traffic manager confident

Heavy snowfall causes delays to city transit service, traffic manager confident

Heavy snowfall causes delays to city transit service, traffic manager confident
Snow is cleared from a city sidewalk. File photo

While reports fly in about poor weather conditions across the province, the City of Prince Albert is working to safely transport transit riders where they need to go and keep drivers and their vehicles on the roads.

According to an RCMP media release on Sunday morning, Saskatchewan’s weather is impacting road conditions all over the province due to snow and gusting winds. Prince Albert is feeling the effects, but the City is handling the situation well according to Traffic Manager Evan Hastings.

“I think the City is a lot more prepared this year to handle the amount of snow we’re getting. It is a very similar snowfall compared to last year, except it seems like we’re getting moving a lot quicker,” Hastings said. 

More snow is expected to fall throughout Monday and Tuesday, but Hastings said the City’s transit service will continue to operate closely to how it is right now. 

“We’ll be updating the public as soon as we can if there’s any outages for bus stops, but the City service will try to get to every stop they can with keeping public safety in mind,” he said. “I’ve been doing as many updates as possible on the City website, as well as on Transit Live.”

Hastings explained that the City’s bus GPS tracking app shows which stops are currently being missed due to the extreme snowfall to ensure the public is notified quickly about the possibility of delays.

He thanked the City’s roadways crew for working tirelessly to keep the City streets cleared for drivers.

“They already have the arterial roadways cleared and they’re moving to Priority 2, so they’ve been very efficient and very effective in their snow clearing progress. We can expect to see all the snow removed as soon as possible,” said Hastings.

According to a transit service update released on Monday afternoon, due to the amount of snow this past weekend and with more on the way, the following bus stops will be bypassed until these streets are graded and cleared of snow:

East Hill

  • 20th Street East
  • Branion Drive
  • 4th Avenue East
  • 25th Street East

East Flat

  • 10th Street
  • 5th Avenue East
  • 4th Avenue East
  • 6th Street
  • 3rd Avenue East
  • 8th Street

All Day Express

  • 3rd Avenue West

All buses for the Prince Albert Catholic School Division and Prince Albert schools belonging to the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division were also cancelled on Monday. According to the SRPSD daily bus report, Christopher Lake, Osborne, and Spruce Home buses ran in the afternoon.

Garette Tebay, Superintendent of the Sask. Rivers Public School Division, said school buses can’t run unless the City’s roads are cleared, and is unsure if they will be running Tuesday if the snowfall continues.

“We have to make sure that we’re running them as safely as possible for kids,” Tebay explained.

A progress report on snow operations by the City asked that residents who live on one of the streets indicated as Priority 2 move their vehicles to allow crews access to clear the snow. 

“We have a lot of snow, making driving difficult today. We can’t get to it all. Not all at once, anyway. But the crews have been out there, relentlessly clearing streets over the weekend and since 5 am this morning,” reads the update from the City.

They noted that if the 10 to 15 centimeters of snow predicted to fall overnight continues, roadway crews will need to start over again on Priority 1 streets.