Town of Aurora plows through changes to address resident snow removal woes

Changes include increasing plowing routes, reorganizing staff and adding equipment

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 26, 2017
By Teresa Latchford

Joanne Shum hasn't been impressed with the town's snow removal practices in the past.

The Pattemore Gate resident noticed last winter the snow plow tends to her street late in the day, not until the next day or on occasion not at all. While her street only has a slight incline, it is enough for cars to get stuck and not be able to reach Mavrinac Boulevard.

"Eventually cars reverse and try to gun it up which works at times and sometimes not," she said. "The other option, which I do, is go back and around to Kane to get out."

The lack of snow clearing is a safety concern for pedestrians and drivers on her street.

Shum isn't alone as fellow residents have complained about inadequate sidewalk clearing and damage to sod and gardens from the sidewalk plows.

Council recently discussed a winter maintenance report penned by acting operations manager Jim Tree, outlining the snow removal challenges the department faced last year and changes to improve service.

The town is responsible for snow removal on 216 kilometres of road and 213 km of sidewalk, both of which will increase by 13 km and 28 km when ownership of new development roads are assumed in the next five years.

To address the need, the town will set an eleventh road plow route and an eighth sidewalk route. Council has already approved the addition of a tandem plow and sander truck in 2018 and existing tractors will be equipped with snow plows and side wings to tend to cul-de-sacs and tight access locations including municipal parking lots.

Managerial changes and equipment failure are blamed for the lack of response to two significant snow events in 2017 that led to an increase in residential complaints.

"It has been determined that despite the fact that our winter maintenance staff resources are marginally lower than our neighbouring municipalities that, with some changes on how we deploy these staff, our current staff complement are generally capable of meeting the needs," the report states.

Crew leaders will now also operate plows, increasing on road crews by four operators.

Operational changes include having a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week road patrol staff monitoring road conditions and calling in staff, adding three operators from the parks department into the rotation and create three groups of staff to a rotating standby schedule.

The report also shines a light on the rising costs of sidewalk clearing, which cost $500,000 last year. In order to mitigate these costs the town would have to consider revised service levels only clearing main arterial and priority pedestrian routes, extending the response time to avoid overtime costs or enacting a bylaw requiring property owners to clear sidewalks.

"All of those would result in a level of dissatisfaction in the community and perhaps some additional exposure to liability," Tree wrote in the report.

As for the re-establishment of overnight parking restrictions to assist winter maintenance operations, a report is expected at an October committee meeting.