A Red Deer resident wants to put a stop to residential windrows that can interfere with on-street parking in the winter.
As of Thursday evening, Brandon Weiten had collected 199 signatures on his Change.org petition to convince the City of Red Deer to rethink the practice of leaving windrows in front of residences on smaller residential roads known as Grey Routes in the city’s snow and ice program.
“It’s just frustrating, for a hardworking, taxpaying citizen, that the city doesn’t seem to care,” said Weiten, who has not had to deal with windrows so far this year.
He said last year he had to hire a bobcat to remove the ice and snow in front of his home.
“We had no choice. It was either have no parking or hire someone to remove it. Even when the bobcat came it took him 30 minutes or so, and he was moving chunks of ice the size of a car’s windshield.”
He said larger vehicles, like FedEx trucks, could not get down his street because people would park beside windrows instead of removing them.
The piles of ice and snow could make it more difficult for emergency responders to do their job, as well as impacting residents with limited mobility. Inflation is also making it tougher for residents to tackle extra costs like snow removal, he added.
Grey Routes have not been plowed since the recent snowfall, and he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
“Unless a particular street or crescent or close is really bad, they should just be leaving it, or do it properly and taking it away,” Weiten said.
Related:
Quicker residential street clearing in Red Deer is promised under new pilot program
Greg Sikora, the city’s parks and public works manager, said a pilot program to remove windrows to provide additional parking will go ahead for select Grey Routes in front of R3 zones where there is high-density housing, like apartments.
“The City of Red Deer continues to monitor our program to find the best fit, and we also understand some things may require a balance of priorities and we continue to invite public feedback on what is important to the community,” Sikora said.
He said the focus for the city’s snow and ice program is mobility on road infrastructure. While windrows can be an inconvenience, it is one way to restore mobility.
“Being proactive through our campaigns, we try to minimize the size of those windrows so you can allow for parking on the street without even the removal of the windrow. In some areas where there’s higher density and lots of driveways, those windrows become rather large and it does take out on-street parking.”
Plowing has yet to be triggered on Grey Routes this season, but if windrows on the routes were removed it could cost $3.5 to $4 million, in addition to constructing a new snow storage site, he said.
Related:
Service reductions prefered to higher taxes by most surveyed Red Deerians
The city’s new pilot road clearing program for 2023-24 includes snow and ice removal on a 24/7 basis instead of just on weekdays to increase service levels, especially in residential areas.
Instead of having to wait for a certain amount of snowfall to trigger residential clearing, now the rate of precipitation, temperature and the weather forecast are considered and weighed.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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