Sault Blog

The 2024-25 winter is another significant snowfall season; the snowbanks on the streets are so high that pulling out of your driveway is hazardous.

Residing on Queen Street at the Golf County Club curve, it is difficult to see oncoming vehicles travelling westbound, even without the snowbanks. Making matters worse, my next-door neighbour has contracted a tractor snow-blower company that takes all the snow from their driveway and blows it to the end of their driveway, creating a snow mountain. This snow-blowing company does not care if I cannot see any vehicle speeding towards me as I back out of my driveway.

Queen Street is a priority for snow plowing and removal, so the snowbanks are removed quickly; I really appreciate it. But how do other streets in the City fair for snowbank removal?

Conversely, I have a rental property on Shafer Avenue in the center/west that once had the snowbanks removed but not for the last couple of years.

Like many streets in our City, Shafer Avenue is now down to one lane of traffic. I called the City Board of Works to ask when the snowbanks would be removed. The receptionist transferred me to the Manager’s telephone extension, and I left a “customer service request” asking when the snowbanks would be removed from Shafer Avenue. I never got a callback.

My tenant requires a wheelchair for mobility and, therefore, needs a parabus for transportation that takes up all the road for pick-ups and drop-offs. It’s not ideal as other vehicular drivers try to force their way around the parabus.

I understand that the City Board of Works is busy with snow plowing and removal, and I respect that, but this isn’t just a snow removal problem; it’s a communication problem. Other cities with high snow loads have created essential City GIS maps that “track” the progress of snow removal and project the order of snow removal for their city’s various areas and streets on a dynamic GIS Map on their City’s webpage. The City of Edmonton’s website provides a good example of this.

A visual, easy-to-understand GIS map highlighting the progress of snowbank removal is a communication tool that would free up administrative time and eliminate “requests for customer service” asking when the snowbank will be removed from city streets. The GIS map would identify the City’s Board of Works’ ability to do the job promptly, safely, and fairly to all its Citizens.

A dynamic and detailed GIS snow removal map for our City would also communicate the following information: the progress of snow removal on various streets, identify when a street will have the snowbanks removed, and uncover the fact that the City is underfunded in workforce and equipment to remove snowbanks in a safe and timely manner.

Our City’s Administrative Management is “stuck in analog.” It’s a failure to change to a digital 311data system that captures citizens’ “requests for service”: databases, tracks, follows up, dashboards, and presents the data in easy-to-understand GIS maps on our City’s website.

Mark Menean, www.saultblog.com