After a temperamental few days from Mother Nature, many Okotokians took to social media to air their grievances with the state of local roads.
The majority of posts and comments focused on the slick conditions of thoroughfares, intersections and other routes, claiming that a lack of effort on the Town's part to get out with graders, plows and other machinery was to blame.
"Atrocious," "terrible" and "not safe" were just some of the descriptors written online by numerous individuals.
It's not unusual for the Town to receive complaints following a significant snowfall or other weather event, according to Mayor Tanya Thorn, although she said there were less than 15 formal complaints made to her office and the transportation department in relation to this particular snowfall.
"Snow removal and snow removal management is probably the number one complaint issue in every municipality, every year," she said.
Last weekend's warm up/cool down, rainy/snowy weather left maintenance crews in a tough spot.
"To create roads that are passable for vehicles, because we did have a significant amount of snow, we had to go out and plow. Well, the moment you plow that, you expose that whole black ice layer," the mayor explained.
"That deals with the snow part of it, but the ice removal has been the bane of this snow removal season; if you talk to any of the Town operators or even the private operators that are dealing with commercial businesses, residential areas, dealing with ice has been a significant challenge this year because of the thaw and freeze cycles we’ve had."
Okotoks uses an environmentally-friendly 'pickled mix' on roads and, like many other products, a challenge presents itself when the temperature hits so far below zero – effectiveness is limited because the mixture essentially rolls off the sheets of glass.
The Town has outlined its service level for snow removal in various forums. As it stands, sanding operations for priority one routes (arterial roads and downtown) must start within four hours when snowfall accumulation under has occurred. All of the routes should be cleared within 24 hours of the snowfall ending, according to the current policy.
Sanding of priority two routes (collector roads) should begin within 24 hours of an accumulation. All of these routes should be cleared within 48 hours of the snowfall ending.
Given the unique state of the roads and the current snow clearing policy, Thorn believes the Town is meeting expectations, however if residents feel that is not the case, they are welcome to contact council to discuss possible improvements to the service level, she added.
"Right now the service level that exists for our snow and ice for priority one, two, three and our pathways is in our current tax base," Thorn said. "But if we want more than that, we need to talk about what the cost implications of that are and what that would require for a tax increase to increase services.
"We’re very open to having that conversation if residents want that."
For immediate resolutions to road conditions, the mayor encourages residents to reach out to the transportation department at 403-938-8952 or [email protected].
"If you want to talk about what policy needs to change, the specifics of that, council is happy to have that conversation. Reach out to any of us, reach out to my office," she said. "But if it’s around how it’s being executed and what’s happening and you're trying to fix today’s problem, you need to talk to our staff."
Thorn also said it's important for all members of the community to take on some responsibility by driving to the road conditions.
