It’s back to the original way of snow removal from city sidewalks in Armstrong.
The city had been developing a policy since the fall to show the public how and when snow is removed.
After a major snowfall before Christmas that caused numerous headaches and issues, and prompted an outpouring of response from residents, the city revisited the policy.
“Last time we went through it was the first part of December,” said Mayor Chris Pieper. “Staff recommended to us that we divide snow on the streets in half and push half of it to one side, half to the other side. Well that works well on roads that do not have sidewalks.
“But roads that have sidewalks were ending up with a lot more snow on the sidewalk. It was a lot more difficult to park on that side of the road because you have a five-foot windrow (long line of piled-up snow) adjacent to the sidewalk creating problems for mail delivery, or any kind of service on those subdivision roads.”
Council gave permission to public works manager Doug MacKay to go back and reassess the policy which came after mayor, council and city staff received numerous letters and calls of complaints.
“People in the community wrote some very well-written letters, not all were negative in what we were doing wrong but expressing their concerns and gave positive feedback,” said Coun. Paul Britton. “We are trying to make our policy more clear, to be fairer to people on both sides of the roads because typically we’ve plowed from the sidewalk side to the opposite side. The idea was to be fair and go 50-50 on both sides.”
Britton said the city spends around $120,000 per year on snow removal.
“We don’t have a whole lot of equipment and a whole lot of public works staff,” he said. “We’re not like a big city that can look after it. The main, secondary and residential routes are all well-cleared.”
In other communities, residential owners are responsible for their own sidewalk but that’s not the case in Armstrong.
“Lots of residents are out helping each other,” said Britton.
Some of the calls and letters asked the city to hire more contractors.
“It’s really easy to say ‘get some contractor help,’ but when there’s a major snowfall or whatever, all the contractors are busy,” said Pieper. “They’ve got their own machines doing their own work. Public works has a staff/crew of four. What happens if something else happens, like a water line break or something like that? Then we have to deal with that as that takes priority.
“The policy changed this year to push snow 50-50 has been changed back to the original way we did snowplowing.”
The policy can be found on the city’s website, www.cityofarmstrong.bc.ca.