Saskatoon lowers expectations for snow removal response on some roads

WATCH: Saskatoon councillors are calling on administrators to come up with a plan to speed up the city's snow removal response.

City crews are taking too long to clear snow from some streets, and the city is addressing the problem by lowering its expectations.

“Either way, it’s going to be more time and resources, or we just go with status quo,” Coun. Randy Donauer said at the city’s transportation committee meeting Tuesday.

The committee was given two options from administration: increase the crew and budget for snow events to get the job done quicker or lower the service level to better reflect the time it has recently taken crews to clear snow.

Any time five centimetres or more of snow falls in Saskatoon, the city declares a snow event — that triggers a snow clearing response.

Priority 1 streets are Saskatoon’s main roadways like Circle Drive. Priority 2 streets are double-lane streets like Clarence Ave, and Priority 3 streets include Main Street.

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Service level timelines dictate that Priority 1 streets get cleared within 12 hours of snowfall ending, Priority 2 streets are to be cleared within 36 hours and Priority 3 streets within 72 hours.

Over the last four years, Priority 1 and 2 streets have generally been cleared within the expected timelines, but Priority 2 streets were cleared within 36 hours only 75 per cent of the time.

In the last four years, the average time it took to complete all Priority 2 streets — which make up over half of all roadways in Saskatoon — was 45 hours.

“The current city and contract resources normally deployed after snow events are not sufficient to clear all P2 streets within the current service level,” Goran Saric, the director of roadways, told the committee.

To solve the problem, the committee accepted administration’s recommendation to move the goalposts from 36 hours to 48 hours.

Donauer wondered what’s the point of the system in its current iteration if service levels aren’t being met, or if some roads should be given a different priority.

“Why don’t we just have P1 and P3 or P1 and P2 and set the appropriate levels? Because I don’t understand why the two is there,” he said.

To keep the 36-hour service level, Saric said the city would need to increase snow-clearing resources. This would require eight more graders and eight more operators, which would cost the city an estimated $890,000 every year.

Saric said $2 million would need to be added to the budget to purchase four graders and contract another four out to the private market.

In its report, administration says some Priority 3 streets are cleared at the same time as Priority 2 streets because of the significantly higher number of Priority 2 streets. Saric says doing this allows for efficiencies — rather than lifting a grader’s blade while it travels on a Priority 3 street while moving to another Priority 2 street.

Donauer wonders if the city isn’t following its own rules, then why have the system at all.

“We have P1 and the rest, because we’re not treating P2 as a P2. We’re doing them simultaneously with the P3,” he said.

Saric showed a willingness to look at road prioritization in the future, and he may not have to wait too long.

A review of that magnitude will happen ahead of Link — Saskatoon’s upcoming bus rapid transit program — launching in 2028.

Link is expected to change the city’s bus network and will prioritize different roads. A report is expected before the committee in 2027.