By Sheldon Spackman

what do you think?

City seeks public input on snow and ice control

Feb 12, 2020 | 2:45 PM

The City of Red Deer has arranged a series of public consultation sessions as it aims to improve its snow and ice control program

The City evaluates and makes improvements to the Snow and Ice Control program each year in an effort to balance safety, access, and costs while minimizing impacts to road users.

This year, however, the City wants to hear from residents about their experiences and ideas for improvements.

“As we approach into this multi-year budgeting program, we want to make sure that we’re making decisions based on community need and the representation of the community,” explains Greg Sikora, Public Works Manager.

“We hear from residents, we hear from phone calls, we hear from emails, we hear from social media, but there’s a large silent majority. What we want to be able to do is tap into that resource and make sure that we fully understand clearly what the community needs.”

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Between Feb. 12 and Mar. 31, residents can participate in one of four Snow Workshops and provide their input online or interact with staff at various locations and events throughout the city.

The online survey is available starting today by visiting www.reddeer.ca/snow and there are four Snow Workshops planned for the month of March. Workshop dates include:

Mar. 3 at the North Side Community Centre from 6:00–8:00 p.m.

Mar. 4 at Festival Hall from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Mar. 24 inside the gathering area at Notre Dame High School from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Mar. 25 at the Golden Circle from 3:00– 5:00 p.m.

Sikora says the goal is to be absolute certain they’re making decisions around the services they provide to the community, based on the most complete and accurate information possible.

He notes that this year has been a challenging one for Public Works, from a snow and ice control perspective.

“As everybody knows we’ve gone through some very cold temperatures into about three weeks of really warm temperatures where it has required us to be flexible and nimble on our program service deliveries,” he reveals. “Our Grey Route plow program was suspended because of the amount of melting that was occurring, no longer required that plowing of residential areas to prevent the future ruts that could develop through the balance of winter.”

Sikora says historical weather data helps them plan for what they might expect each year.

“We work with that as the best information we have and we want to position ourselves so that we don’t have mobility issues later in the winter that may impact residential accessibility, or even worse, ambulance accessibility into areas,” adds Sikora. “It’s about getting the right information, getting what is of value to the community and working towards finding optimum programs to meet that service delivery.”

Sikora encourages residents to sign up for the Notify Red Deer program to be notified of when your neighbourhood is scheduled to be plowed.

Information gathered from the workshops and online survey will be used by City administration to develop operational recommendations and potential program changes to the City’s Snow and Ice Control Program.

Administration will be reviewing the workshop learnings and operational recommendations with council later this summer.

All residents who share their thoughts online, at a workshop or pop-up event will be entered to win one of two $150 Visa gift cards.