Saskatoon roadways manager says $20 million price tag for full-city snow clearing not yet justified

The City of Saskatoon has chosen not to activate its roadways emergency response plan despite a weekend of heavy snowfall reaching the 25-centimetre threshold.

“We recognize that there there's a lot of snow out there,” said Goran Saric, roadways, fleet & support with the City of Saskatoon.

“And driving conditions, especially on local street side streets are challenging still. But every day I think we are seeing some improvements with mobility. And for that reason, this decision to activate the roads emergency response plan hasn't been made because, based on the assessments, the criteria consisting of these two factors haven't been fully met.”

Classes were cancelled for all of the Saskatoon public and Catholic school divisions, as well as the Prairie Spirit School Division.

Monday classes were still on for students at Saskatchewan Polytechnic and at the University of Saskatchewan, though some individual faculties may have delayed or cancelled class entirely.

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Saric says the decision to close schools was made in collaboration with school divisions in order to minimize the amount of traffic on Saskatoon roads.

“Not having all those vehicles on the road for a day, I think in the end was like 65,000 people not traveling for a day,” he said. “It’s helping us tremendously with all the priority streets where school zones are located.”

Between 3 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday, Saskatoon Police say there were 17 motor vehicle collisions attributed to the severe conditions.

“As always, police would like to remind members of the motoring public to reduce speeds, allow for additional travel time to your destination and increase your following distance with the vehicle ahead,” reads a statement from the Saskatoon Police Service.

Saric says the decision not to activate the roadways emergency response plan largely came down to the ability for vehicles to get around town, and a cost in the range of $18 to $20 million added to the snow and ice removal budget.

“Our annual snow and ice management budget is approximately $16 million for the current year,” said Saric. “The $18 to $20 million would be an incremental cost. So that's one of the reasons why the city leaders and administration is taking a very careful approach to this decision.”

Saric says the city has completed clearing all priority 1 streets and are underway on priority 2 and 3 streets. He says the city will continue to monitor residential streets prone to deep ruts or mobility issues.

All priority streets are expected to be cleared by Thursday morning, according to a release from the City of Saskatoon.

Garbage collection was cancelled on Monday but will resume Tuesday.

Public, Catholic and Prairie Spirit School Divisions sent notices alerting parents that school would be back Tuesday.