Municipalities and private contractors may soon have to pay to dump snow at Edmonton facilities \u2014 a service the city has long provided for free.<\/p>\n
The idea surfaced Friday as Edmonton\u2019s parks and roads service department briefed councillors during a deep dive into department operations.<\/p>\n
Should the plan go ahead, dumping snow at city facilities will include a fee by 2030.<\/p>\n
Officials estimate 60-70 per cent of the snow hauled to city dumping sites comes from the private sector. The city operates five snow disposal grounds designed to protect the environment and provide public safety protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was quite shocked,\u201d said Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz. \u201cWe all want to live in a city with very efficient snow removal that helps all of us get through the winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I appreciate the generosity that Edmonton has been sharing to regional partners and private contractors, given our fiscal situation every dollar Edmonton spends subsidizing private contractors or regional municipalities is a dollar we can\u2019t spend enhancing service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Administration is also considering automated parking enforcement during parking bans, which branch manager Caitlin Zerebeski said would give officials another tool to get vehicles off the street during heavy snowfalls.<\/p>\n
Where those vehicles go remains a question, however.<\/p>\n
Council had previously heard during a Tuesday public hearing that alleyways are the last sections of roads cleared during snow removal operations. Mayor Andrew Knack said the city would need to improve service across the board regardless of how much snow actually drops.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlleys do still get cleared \u2014 I think they could get done more quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, I use my back alley all the time during winter. It\u2019s not great, I have a small car. But it still allows me to access my home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe large snowfall we saw in late December and early January made that particularly challenging \u2014 this is why I want to have a service level conversation. We want people to use their garages during a parking ban. Most alleys are still accessible during the winter, even after a snowfall. When you see an extreme snowfall event, that\u2019s when we have to have a conversation about how quickly are we responding to those needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
An audit of the city\u2019s snow and ice removal operations will be presented to council in August.<\/p>\n
Proactive traffic signals back in the spotlight<\/p>\n
Another idea under consideration is proactive traffic signals, where lights change based on which vehicles are waiting at the intersection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think anywhere you can get to a place in operations where you can be as proactive as possible means that people\u2019s experience with the roadway and how they navigate is optimized,\u201d said Zerebeski. \u201cWe\u2019ve removed signaling along the Yellowhead. Signals typically go in when there\u2019s an intersection of a collector road to an arterial road to allow for safe access.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a traffic signal that\u2019s already place, how can you time it in such a way that allows you continuous movement without a disruption while factoring in things like transit and LRT and allowing for that priority service?\u201d<\/p>\n
Administration had previously proposed updating the city\u2019s proactive traffic signal retiming to integrate modern automation technology, but council rejected the proposal at the time citing budget concerns.<\/p>\n
But following the fifth heaviest snowfall on record, councillors expressed renewed interest in the technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some intersections with sensors that can change the light when vehicles are stopped there,\u201d said Ward O-Day\u2019min Coun. Anne Stevenson. \u201cThat\u2019s an example of adaptive and responsive signaling which can help our roads be much more efficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve all had those moments where it\u2019s late at night and there\u2019s not another car in sight but we\u2019re still stuck at a red light for two minutes. This type of technology can help avoid that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also noted an automated system would help officials redirect traffic in the event of a major car accident to minimize traffic backups if a major intersection is blocked.<\/p>\n
City officials told Postmedia converting a four-way intersection to a proactive signal system costs between $45,000 and $50,000. Fewer than five per cent of traffic lights are currently considered proactive.<\/p>\n
ebowling@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Municipalities and private contractors may soon have to pay to dump snow at Edmonton facilities \u2014 a service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,210378,105143,23752,210379,178940,210380],"class_list":["post-538128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-facilities","tag-city-of-edmonton","tag-edmonton","tag-private-contractors","tag-snow-removal","tag-traffic-signals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}