Snow-covered roads hinder commute in Calgary, school buses not running

Calgarians woke up Tuesday morning to at least 15 centimetres of snow on the ground.

The city had its entire fleet of heavy road clearing equipment on the street.

"We have about 100 pieces of large equipment out, as well as another 100 pieces of smaller equipment doing some of the pedestrian cycle infrastructure," said Chris Hewitt, the City of Calgary's manager of mobility maintenance.

"We have no expectation of calling a parking ban right now. Fortunately, there was there wasn't a lot of snow on the roads when this began, so there's a lot of room to store snow right now."

Poor road conditions prompted the Calgary Board of Education, Calgary Catholic School District and Renfrew Educational Services to cancel their school bus services but schools remain open.

The CBE says it will email parents/guardians to let them know if they will be providing yellow school bus service on Wednesday by 6:30 a.m. tomorrow. Information will also be shared on the organization's social media channels. 

Renfrew Educational Services says it will not have buses running on Wednesday. 

Calgary police say between midnight and 4 p.m. Tuesday, there were 142 crashes reported including 17 hit-and-run collisions and eight involving injuries. 

Daryl Ries was in one of those non-injury crashes. His Lincoln SUV slid through the intersection at Memorial Drive and Deerfoot Trail and smacked into the rear-wheel well of a pickup truck.

"I was looking behind me to try and maintain my lane to avoid causing damage that way, and then didn't have time. I probably slid a good 40 feet," said Reis. 

"it's (a) downward incline road there, so winter tires still didn't do the job."

City road crews continue to focus their snow clearing efforts on priority 1 routes.

The winter driving conditions are also caused headaches for Calgary Transit users.

Tuesday morning, more than 30 bus routes were on snow detours. A complete list of service updates can be found on the city's website.