Leong: Calgary should do more keep snow from trapping transit buses

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It seems as if after every big snowfall, questions arise about the effective of Calgary’s snow clearing program.

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The city’s snow and ice control regime has improved greatly in recent years, with new guidelines on which streets are cared for, how quickly and in what order. This is all helped by an annual snow budget that’s grown to $55 million after city councillors finally understood that we can’t always rely on the next chinook to take care of things.

Despite all of this, the program continues to be the source of headaches and delays for the many thousands of people daily who rely on Calgary Transit buses to get around.

When the first of two snowstorms last week hit the city on Nov. 18, it took no time for buses to get stuck all over the place.

It wasn’t just at known trouble spots usually subjected to snow detours: Publicly accessible bus location tracking tools showed large numbers of vehicles trapped by snow elsewhere, too.

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While it might feel natural to send flak Calgary Transit’s way, they’re not the ones responsible for dealing with snow covering streets. City hall is.

The powers that be chose to prioritize clearing the highest-volume city arteries during the initial hours of a winter storm. Bus routes are next in line.

This arrangement should be reconsidered.

Reward people who choose transit, leave cars at home during snowstorms

As I’ve previously argued, the city should encourage people to leave their cars at home on snow days, leaving room on the streets for snow clearing crews to do their work and making way for those who have no other choice but to drive.

Those who choose to ride the bus during bad winter weather should be rewarded with a transit system that isn’t crippled due to the way the city’s snow clearing program is organized.

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It would be unfair to expect 100 per cent on-time performance in the middle of the snowstorm and bus riders should prepare for some delays — but not more than a handful of buses getting stuck, sending huge chunks of the system into disarray.

Our snow clearing program should explicitly favour Calgary Transit, which incidentally is among the city’s greatest revenue generators in terms of fees collected for service.

And it’s not a question of spending more money, but spending the current $55 million more effectively.

Do routes like Crowchild Trail and Glenmore Trail really need to be scraped down to bare pavement and kept that way in the middle of a snowstorm? Perhaps there’s a way to reallocate resources and routinely clear some of the snow off the trickiest spots on major bus routes in the middle of the storm.

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An official with the city’s snow-clearing plan expressed openness at ideas to improve the program’s effectiveness, highlighting a pilot project involving smaller, less-expensive plows.

‘The city works collaboratively on all these things’

“We’re putting out these smaller plows on our priority networks — major roads through communities and the bus routes,” said Chris Hewitt, Calgary’s manager for mobility maintenance. “These trucks aren’t able to keep a road clear in the way that sander would but they are able to keep the accumulation down and keep those roads moving while our larger fleet is on those priority one roads.”

The pilot project launched in the northwest last year with promising results, he said, adding that it will be expanded into southeast Calgary this season as soon as the necessary equipment arrives.

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He also struck a reassuring note when asked about the level of communication between snow-clearing crews and other city departments.

“The city works collaboratively on all these things,” said Hewitt. “So we’re speaking with transit. We’re speaking with our water services department, our waste and recycling, getting the garbage trucks out.

“During a snow event or when we’re expecting heavy snow, we’re speaking with those departments regularly to know what everyone’s doing, what kind of changes people may make, if they have to, and offer any support that we can.”

Those are warm sentiments but for the sake of Calgary Transit bus riders left out in the cold over the past week, the city needs to translate those aspirations into concrete, observable action.

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