Newly appointed Chair of Engineering and Works Chris Mayne says, “As most people realize we have had exceptional snow accumulations these past few weeks but warmer weather is helping.”
Mayne says City of North Bay crews will continue to assess snow removal needs as we move through the winter weather but reminds much of the work is weather dependent. “If we don’t receive a lot of unexpected bad weather we may get more accomplished than planned, if we do receive significant weather events that draw away work crews, we may get less done.”
A winter storm watch has been issued for Tuesday into Wednesday forecasting 25 centimetres of snow, so that would slow down snow removal and roadway widening mid-week if the storm materializes.
The widening program is completed with both contract blower and City equipment. This process involves widening the roadway and blowing the snow accumulation back behind the banks onto City property. Mayne says, “We have completed all of [West] Ferris, city core, Pinewood, and are currently around Ski Club and the Airport Hill area.” Crews began to tackle the snowbanks in Graniteville and Birchaven over the weekend and work will continue this week.
The removal program is being conducted from 4:00am through 4:00pm weekdays with City staff and contract trucks, as required. Efforts cleared the Princess, Victoria, and King Street areas late last week.
Mayne adds, “As you can appreciate the demand for removals is ever increasing this winter. Historically, we completed removals from curb line to curb line and removed all of the snow. Because of the large demand, we are going to try reducing this and take only the width of our loader mounted blower on each side of the road. This will result in smaller snowbanks still remaining on the road allowance but will enable us to deliver safer driving conditions and storage space for additional snow going forward.”
Below is a list of roadways to be completed over the next two weeks:
- Norman Avenue from McKee to Rancier
- Rancier Street from Norman to Bolton
- Mountainview Drive
- Lake Heights Road
- McKeown Avenue from Cartier to Gormanville
- Lansdowne Avenue
- Oakwood Avenue
- Champlain Street from Cartier to Algonquin
- Jane Street from Durrill to Gormanville
- Joseph Street
- Gertrude Street E from Lakeshore to Claudia Court
