RCMP say collisions did not spike in Red Deer Friday morning as extremely icy roads slowed traffic down to a crawl in many areas.
Greg Sikora, city parks and public works manager, said air temperatures were above 0 C Thursday night and early Friday morning while road temperatures were well below 0 C so when moisture arrived it froze to the roads.
“Those wide swings do present traction control issues. That’s why last night we sent our forces out. We deployed pre-wetting techniques to prep the roads to prevent the bonding of ice on hills and bridges primarily last night,” said Sikora about the use of salt brine and sand.
“By deploying our forces prior to the snow coming in, we position ourselves to be in a better place and then it advances us through the campaign of traction control on our other road infrastructure.”
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Red Deer road-clearing crews are trying to keep up after four days of heavy snowfall
Sikora said as of late Friday morning, sanders and plows were out in full force and had moved onto main arterial roads and within 24 hours those roads would be done. Then the campaign will move onto bus routes, collector and residential roads.
He said road conditions were expected to improve for the drive home from work. Residents should call Parks and Public Works at 403-342-8238 or use the Report a Problem program to let the city know about trouble spots. But it does take time to address complaints given the hundreds of kilometres of roads in the city.
“Even though we are good at what we do, we unfortunately can’t be everywhere immediately. We understand the desire to have everything stabilized and we’re working at that as quickly as we can to make that happen.”
Related:
An extreme winter created more pothole repairs for Red Deer roads crews
Red Deer RCMP Cpl. Mike Evans said as of early Friday morning motorists were driving to the road conditions and leaving extra space between other vehicles when stopping so there was no major increase collisions.
When road conditions are poor, he encourages drivers to take extra time to get to their destination and make sure head lights and tail lights are on when visibility is diminished.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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