City of Lethbridge's snow route season begins; crews prepare for arrival of winter weather

LETHBRIDGE — As overnight temperatures continue to dip below freezing, the City of Lethbridge has launched its second annual snow route season ahead of winter.

Snow routes can be activated anytime between Nov. 1 and April 1, when the City of Lethbridge's transportation operations department deems it necessary.

"First, we plow and maintain the arterial roads like Whoop-Up Drive, Scenic (Drive), Mayor Magrath (Drive), and once we are done with those, we move on to priority 2 and 3 routes,” said Juliane Ruck, transportation operations manager with the City of Lethbridge.

While there is no snow in the immediate forecast, Ruck says there will be 12 plows ready to go when the first snowfall hits.

Ruck says hiring and training of staff began in September.

"During the summer, we use our tandem trucks for just regular hauling of material, so in preparation for the winter, we suit them up with sanders and plows," she said.

When snow routes are declared, temporary on-street parking restrictions will be applied.

The city will once again be plowing snow to the right side of the road to keep costs down while clearing nearly 250 kilometres of roadway in a timely manner.

After feedback from residents and city council earlier this spring, the city launched its free windrow assistance program to help residents clear snow that may be blocking their driveways or sidewalks after plows have gone by.

"We had close to 500 people signed up for the windrow assistance program, and when we looked at all the requests, it's really good to see that it's really people that need the help—that have mobility issues and elderly," Ruck said.

The changing of seasons will also see green carts being collected biweekly through the winter.

"Since the inception of the curbside organics program, we have seen over 11,500 tonnes of material diverted from the landfill, so some really great numbers," said James Nicholls, waste environment collections manager with the City of Lethbridge.

With less yard waste, Nicholls says the move is an efficient one.

"Before they put their cart out for collection, maybe just give it a little tap, a little bang, to ensure that any of those materials that they have placed into the cart aren't going to stick and lead to some collection issues when they put it out," he said.

"They can use various liners. Personally, I use yard waste bags all year round to ensure the material doesn't stick to the cart and it also keeps the cart a little bit cleaner."

The waste and recycling department has only seen a two to three per cent contamination rate for items that shouldn't be placed in the green carts.

"We're still seeing about 30 per cent of what goes into the black cart actually end up as organics," Nicholls said.

Significant snow falls earlier this year have used up a large chunk of the $3.8-million snow removal budget, according to Ruck.

"There isn't a lot of snow in the forecast, so we think we should be good and be able to fulfill services within budget," she said.