Five things to know about the snow-clearing season in London

The first snow flurries of the season hit London on Wednesday, drawing out the city’s salt and sanding trucks to slippery bridges and overpasses. But it was a relatively minor start to the snow-clearing season, said Joel Gillard, the city’s division manager of road operations who fielded questions about what to expect with the winter ahead. Heather Rivers reports.

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Q: How much snowfall does it take before plows take to London roads and streets?

A: Ten centimeters for our road plows to hit the streets, according to provincial guidelines. Typically any bit of snowfall will engage our sanders that are a combination plow. They are on call 24/7. (The city has 28 salt and sander trucks outfitted with a plow, as well as 70 road plows and 48 sidewalk plows.)

Q: What’s the pecking order for which roads get cleared first, and in what time frame?

A: We will address Class 1 (roadways) first, which are our highest priority: Highbury Avenue, Wellington, Exeter and Fanshawe Park roads. That is followed by Class 2 and 3 which are other major arteries and bus runs and emergency routes that EMS or fire would need emergency access to. Once our main arterials are cleared, then those units will move into the residential area.

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Q: Residential streets rank where in the snow-clearing priority, and how long should residents expect to wait for their streets to get cleared?

A: We have roughly 24 hours to respond when we do receive a significant snowfall event. Sidewalks will be cleared within 48 hours and bus stops will be cleared within 72 hours. That is 24 hours after snowfall has finished.

Q: Is there a hotline to call if someone believes their street has been overlooked or is snow-choked and hasn’t been plowed in a timely way?

A: I’d like to encourage people to use the City of London’s snow update page (https://london.ca/living-london/snow-updates). It has tons of information not only of our standards but how we go about our snow clearing. It also gives them links on timelines and can address those concerns if their street has been missed. We’d like them to give us those 24 hours before they call in. It does take time for us to clear those streets and people need to be mindful of if it’s an ongoing event. There will be times when we are out clearing our hands and we get continued snow over repeated days and it will push that timeline out.

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Q: How many complaints does the city get each year regarding snow-clearing, from whom and about what?

A: Typical complaints would be those streets that are missed or sod damage when the plows rip up people’s lawns. We always encourage people to put up plow markers because that always helps our operators. We also want them to remember that we are in Southwestern Ontario and at the mercy of Mother Nature. We have climate change; one day it’s freezing cold and the next day it’s plus five. Unfortunately we don’t have that sustained deep cold like we used to and that means softer conditions, which make it easy to rip up (sod) if the plows don’t know where to go. We encourage homeowners to roll that sod back over and put it back down and you will encourage turf growth by doing that process as soon as possible.

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