The City of Saskatoon has activated a city-wide snow response plan which means residential neighbourhoods are going to see snow grading and snow removal.

Since December 25th Saskatoon has received approximately 34 centimetres of snow.

The Director of Roadways, Fleet and Support Services says it is a challenging situation with many residential streets impassable for light vehicles. Goran Saric says, “Public safety is our top priority, and we are doing everything we can to get everyone moving around normally again, including those who live along streets that aren’t typically graded.”

He says city and contractor crews have been steadily working since the December 25 storm. They were just finishing up the priority streets when Tuesday night’s snowfall hit. Some City services that have been affected, like waste collections, will resume as soon as possible or be rescheduled.

Saric says a residential street grading schedule is being developed and will be posted to the City of Saskatoon website later this week.

Saric says with the most recent back-to-back snowfalls, Saskatoon has now received a total of 90 centimetres of snow already this winter and there are still several months of winter ahead of us.

The criteria for activating the city-wide Roadways Emergency Response Plan for responding to extreme or unusual snow events is when the snow accumulation is greater than 25 centimetres and/or there’s a combination of snow, freezing rain and wind; and mobility is reduced to the point that light vehicles cannot travel on city streets; mobility across the city is severely impacted, and the regular winter maintenance level of service applicable to typical snow events cannot be met.