The City of Saskatoon says most local streets will be graded by late Thursday night with only a few exceptions.
A few narrow streets with high concentrations of on-street parking have been skipped. Those streets will be assessed and any required grading work will be done on Monday. Watch for parking restriction signs in these areas over the weekend.
Grading started in industrial areas on Wednesday night and will take about three days of round-the-clock work to complete.
Once the grading is done, there will be additional crews available for snow removal on priority streets. This will come as welcome news for motorists who have been dealing with reduced parking and sightlines from snow piles for the last couple of weeks.
The Thursday afternoon news release from the City of Saskatoon is below:
City and contractor crews are making great progress grading streets to make them accessible again after Mother Nature’s final gift of 2022 — 34 cm of snow between December 25 and 28 on top of approximately 55 cm already accumulated.
Priority streets were all graded within 72 hours and local streets will be completed late tonight, except for a few that were skipped because they are narrow with a high concentration of on-street parking. The plan for these streets is to assess them and schedule any required grading work for Monday. Some of these streets will require parking restrictions; please watch for and obey No Parking signs. Industrial areas got started last night and will take about three days to grade, with crews working day and night.
The Roadways Emergency Response Plan (Plan) that was approved last year for snowstorms like the one in November 2020 lays out a strategy for the snow removal. The final phase started with snow removal in school zones, business improvement districts and some priority streets this week, ahead of schedule.
Priority street snow removal continues this week and will kick into high gear as more crews are re-assigned from local street grading. These are the freeways, expressways, bridges, 2 to 3 lane and collector streets and bus routes within and between neighbourhoods.
This work occurs at night and requires a variety of equipment and operators may not always notice vehicles or people approaching. Please keep back and leave them plenty of space.
Residents are navigating reduced parking and sightlines from the snow piles stored along the streets. The City knows this is a challenge and appreciates everyone’s patience. The strategy for prioritized snow removal on local streets is outlined in the Plan and the planned order of snow removal on local streets within each neighbourhood will be posted next week.
The City and employees thank everyone for their kindness and patience as we all dig in together to clean up all this snow! Learn more about city-wide snow grading and removal at saskatoon.ca/snow.
