Solution to the snow problems

[FraserB]

All the talk of poor snow removal in Calgary got me thinking, just a small idea but this is what I think a more effective removal strategy would look like. It would require the purchase of snow blowers. There are also plows that can be fixed to loaders capable of clearing a 20' section per pass.

1. Weather report calls for 20cm of snow starting Friday PM, additional road crews are called in and 2nd shift workers are put on standby.

2. A) Thursday 11PM city trucks begin spreading de-icer on the roads, crews follow current priority assignments, major on and off-ramps are added to priority 1 routes. De-icing continues until the first snowflake touches the ground.
B) People parking on the sides of the road are told to move to the right side of the road only, failure to comply by the time snow removal begins results in removal of the vehicle to the impound lot.

NIGHT OF THE SNOW

3. Trucks with front mounted plows and sand dispensing units are assigned to Priority 1 routes, trucks with plows on the underbelly are fitted with sand dispensing units and assigned to priority 2 and 3 routes

4. City and contracted graders begin moving snow to the left side of residential streets, starting with the areas though to be the hardest hit and outlying communities. Snow blowers follow graders, placing scraped snow into city "Roads", Waterworks" and "Enmax" trucks unsuitable for plow duties. Snow is dumped at one of 16 depots, 4 in each quadrant of the city. Sand and de-icer can also be stored here.

5. A) Second shift workers are placed on duty without the trucks returning to the yard, trucks are refueled on the road. Having fuel and repair crews with the trucks does place an additional financial cost on the budget but will probably be negated by the time saved.

B) City parks and paths assets (Bobcats, sidewalk plows and personal snowblowers) are sent to the downtown core to clear C-Train platforms and side walks.

6. Priority 1 roads are now clear and sanded for the time being, P1 trucks reload with sand and apply sand to cleaned residential roads. If weather dictates they return to P1 routes.

DAY AFTER THE SNOW

7. P1 and P1 roads are clear and sanded. Main plow trucks, graders and snow blowers not being used are returned to the yard, repairs are completed. Trucks with underbelly plows are kept on the road to deal with trouble spots.

8. Cars in ditches and involved in accidents are cleared from the roads. No nighttime removal, crashed vehicles are marked with flares and reflective tape.

10. After left side of residential roads have been complete, the process is reversed. All cars parked on the left, graders and blowers finish the rest.

[zieg]

Originally posted by FraserB

B) People parking on the sides of the road are told to move to the right side of the road only,



Right side from the road going which way? :nut:

[FraserB]

Originally posted by ZiG-87




Right side from the road going which way? :nut:

Side of the road with even numbered houses then. Followed by side with odd numbered houses.

[zieg]

I... don't really see that happening. :dunno:

[jwslam]

i still think the best solution is to dump the snow outside calgary (see no snow in moscow (http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?s=&postid=3182955) )

send all our snow to... edmonton or something... haha

[noogie]

.

[Cooked Rice]

now if you could only use these on the street.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-140370802418154967&hl=en#

these are crazy good snow plows. one pass gets rids of all the snow right back down to the bare asphalt again. get to see them in action at work all the time. there's a plow up front, a brush in the middle, and a blower in the back to finish it off.

[djayz]

Originally posted by Cooked Rice
now if you could only use these on the street.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-140370802418154967&hl=en#

these are crazy good snow plows. one pass gets rids of all the snow right back down to the bare asphalt again. get to see them in action at work all the time. there's a plow up front, a brush in the middle, and a blower in the back to finish it off.

:werd: Plows we have, but we need brushes as they clean up all the loose snow that sits around and freezes. I've always wondered if the street cleaning trucks are used in the winter. Are these the same trucks just outfitted with a underbelly plow?

[2002civic]

^street cleaners look completely different than plows

[BlackArcher101]

Originally posted by FraserB

3. Trucks with front mounted plows and sand dispensing units are assigned to Priority 1 routes, trucks with plows on the underbelly are fitted with sand dispensing units and assigned to priority 2 and 3 routes

So you are going to be plowing all routes... what's the point of having priorities? Also, do you have an estimated number of plows this would require based on a 5cm/hour snowfall rate? As it is right now, the fleet of trucks we have can't keep up to a heavy snowfall rate, even when plowing only priority 1 routes. By the time they finish a route, the road behind them has already been snow covered. This would take a large capital asset purchase.

A lot of your solution already occurs. You don't mention anywhere budget or cost estimates though (which is the root of the problem here, not the plan).

Trucks fueling on the road? That's the most absurd thing I've heard.

[rockym20]

They would have to make the City impound lot much larger.

What about those streets where you can't park on the opposite side or where so many people park on the street that there are no extra spots?

How will people who must park on the street plug in their car if they can't park in front of their place? Are all of the roads going to be criss-crossed with super-long extension cords?

How about this instead:
1. Everyone pays just a little bit more in taxes
2. Residential communities get plowed during the day, when there are fewer cars parked on the street as most people are at work
3. More major roads get plowed in the evening and over night, as there is less people driving
4. If you leave you car on the street and it gets buried by a plow, you get out a shovel and dig it out. If you are old, you hire the annoying kid next door who makes everything more complicated than it needs to be to do it for you.

[Enhance]

The real problem this past week is that there really isn't an efficient way to control blowing snow. You can plow the road all you want, but if it's beside a field or open space it is just going to fill up again. The wind lasted long enough that most of the major roads needed to be plowed several times over, if those plows moved on to residential streets after the first run through, the major roads would just fill up again.
It's kind of like a utilitarian philosophy; if they plowed your street, it would be helpful to you and your 40 neighbors. If they plow Crowchild, its beneficial to the thousands of people who use it. I doubt any city in NA has the capacity to plow every road in the city 4 times over before the wind stops blowing.

[adidas]

Originally posted by Cooked Rice
now if you could only use these on the street.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-140370802418154967&hl=en#

these are crazy good snow plows. one pass gets rids of all the snow right back down to the bare asphalt again. get to see them in action at work all the time. there's a plow up front, a brush in the middle, and a blower in the back to finish it off.

That might work at the airport cause its straight like an arrow. Good luck getting that machine to do anything on the shitty streets we have in calgary.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by FraserB


Side of the road with even numbered houses then. Followed by side with odd numbered houses.

I guess you heard about the Minneapolis plan.

That's how they do it.

Once they declare a snow emergency. 8pm and 8am people need to vacate even side of road for crew. Then 8am to 8pm of next day they have to vacate odd side.

People fail to do it get towed. And the city tow about 1500 cars every snow emergency. This process is so efficient that every snow emergency only cost the city around 150-200K to clear the city because the lack of overtime payments.

I love that idea. If we can tow 1500 cars and add $100 penalty to the standard tow and lot charges, the snow clearing will almost pay for itself.

I love it!

[nonlinear]

in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they declare snow emergencies, and for one part of the day you can only park on the odd side of the road, and the other part of the day on the even part. if you don't move your car, they tow it for you :D

Minneapolis:
http://z.about.com/d/minneapolis/1/0/T/3/-/-/snowemergencyminneapolis.jpg

St. Paul:
http://z.about.com/d/minneapolis/1/0/S/3/-/-/snowplowsignstpaul.jpg

EDIT: shit, Xtrema beat me to it, haha! did you spend some time there or something? (i grew lived there until I was 21).

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by nonlinear

EDIT: shit, Xtrema beat me to it, haha! did you spend some time there or something? (i grew lived there until I was 21).

Heard it on CBC R1 last night on my drive home.

Make perfect sense to me. Sounds very efficient and low cost. I love it where I heard it. And it'll get rid of all those whiners who complains they got plowed in and they can actually get their cars back.... :rofl:

[blueToy]

Not even sure where to start with this .

First off , trying to get people to do anything in Calgary is nearly impossible . I've only been on this site for a short time ,yet there hasn't been ONE ( 1 ) idea that didn't have people divided and ready to go to war over . Hell , 99% of the kids on here can't even agree to almost any laws already , and you've even got people who want to do away with speed limits and drive by fucking ' feel ' . Trying to get half the city to move their cars at any one time would be a herculian feat in itself . PLUS , can you imagine the 311 calls , or the number of calls to the 911 about someone stole my car in front of my friends house , etc . The drama would be incredable .
This idea might be good in a small rural setting , but Calgary has over 12,000 kilometers of roadway . To put it in another context , Alberta , outside of the major cities , has 20,000 kilometers of paved roadways . It already takes days to cover that amount of ground , even just once . The logisticts and costs would be huge . Another example ... shoveling sidewalks . drive around . Notice how many people neglect even that basic bylaw ? Think a drunkard is gonna go out in a snow storm and move his car , and to where ??? Where is everyone gonna put their cars , in the lanes ? Most neighbourhoods are already crammed with vehicles . And what about those cars that need a boost or wouldn't start . You gonna force them to tow it or impound them ??? Yeah , that'll start a few heads rolling .

Another thing . Snow removal with a snow blower . We already have it , but it is very costly . It involves a fleet of dozens of trucks , and at $65-120 per hour ( tandem vs tridem trailers ) it is both very expensive and is very slow going . Cleaning up just a few kilometers is a huge endeavor . Trying to clean up all of Calgary's streets immediately after a storm .... enormous task . You'd need hundreds of graders . Hundreds of snowblowers thousands of trucks , AND thousands of field people to do all the signage and repairs . Awe , yes , the repairs .

Most don't realize that tons of stuff gets broken doing snow removal . I was once blading downtown many , many years ago and as i was going by the front doors of the Eatons store , I hit a water valve under the snow . It flung the top cap like a hockey slapshot right thru the front doors and somewhere into the store . Luckily the city boss was behind me and told me to just keep going , he'd take care of it . Also , luckily no one got hit or it would of been fatal , although it was about 3am so nobody was around .
Anyway , curbs get busted . Signs get hit . Hydrants get hit . Manholes get hit . Even cars . Even the grass along roadways get pulled up , and in the spring needs to be repaired .
What I'm getting at is the one reason private contractor are , for the most part , out of the picture . Liability . Who pays for all the damage ? I've worked with a fella who hit a manhole in a grader , busted the blade right off the circle ( he actually drove over the blade ) . Did $60,000 dollars damage to the machine . It turned out we had to pay for the repairs , and since it was basically the profit for the contract , that ended that . No more snow removal ( except emergencies where we have no choice ) . Ice , cold weather and frozen ground and steel just don't go well together .


Anyway , what I'm getting ( need to go soon ) is that the way things are done in Calgary , right now , is the most cost effective way of doing things . You could easily spend tens or hundreds of millions so people could wake up every morning and pretend they are driving in Florida , but this is winter in Calgary . We get snow . We get storms and some folks have to take some of the responcibilties to do their part to make sure things flow smoothly . Most don't do shit until they get into trouble , and then it's blame everyone else . In a perfect world , we'd all have snow tires on our either AWD or 4x4 vehicles , and all have the experience to deal with the crappy conditions that happen in this part of the world . We all know though , that most don't live in a perfect world , so trying to mandate radical changes really ain't gonna happen .

One quick thing about blowing snow and drifts . There was a time years ago the City was more aggressive with putting up snow fences . The idea is that if you put up a barrior before a road ( ie . put up a snow fence along a parkway twenty meters from the roadway ) it created a drift at the snow fence and not the roadway like we saw last week in saddleridge etc . I always thought it was a great idea , yet some bean counter in the city , when those years came and we didn't get much snow , seemed to think it was a waste of money and it got scaled back big time . It may have helped , and I'm betting they are currently reassessing that move for next year .

Hope to add more to this later . Excuse the grammatical and spelling errors .

[nonlinear]

crystal meth is a helluva drug.


Originally posted by blueToy

Hope to add more to this later .

no, please don't.

[Redlyne_mr2]

It's not even that bad out there guys, check out Northern Ontario, Central BC, QC is you want to see snow.

[bonjoey]

Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
It's not even that bad out there guys, check out Northern Ontario, Central BC, QC is you want to see snow.
:werd:

when i used to live in winnipeg, i believe 1-2 days after a big snow storm, all residential streets are considered "snow route" after 12 midnight.
i used to live in an apartment w/o parking and had to move my car 8 blocks to park it at a 24hr gas station where my friend used to work midnight.

also i remember, i have to start the car every 2hrs when it was -35c or below since i dont have access to an ac outlet.
and when it was -40c my hino fb1817 wont start even if i plug it in so i parked it on a superstore parking lot and kept it running :thumbsup:

[nonlinear]

road quality depends more on snow removal practices than it does on total snowfall. the reason the roads suck here is because we have shit, or non-existent, snow removal policies. cities like winnipeg or minneapolis get far more snow but have way cleaner roads.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by blueToy
Not even sure where to start with this .
.......

The beauty of the system is, you don't obey, your car get towed, which will eventually learn or help pay for the emergency snow removal.

[projekz]

Originally posted by rockym20
They would have to make the City impound lot much larger.

What about those streets where you can't park on the opposite side or where so many people park on the street that there are no extra spots?

How will people who must park on the street plug in their car if they can't park in front of their place? Are all of the roads going to be criss-crossed with super-long extension cords?

How about this instead:
1. Everyone pays just a little bit more in taxes
2. Residential communities get plowed during the day, when there are fewer cars parked on the street as most people are at work
3. More major roads get plowed in the evening and over night, as there is less people driving
4. If you leave you car on the street and it gets buried by a plow, you get out a shovel and dig it out. If you are old, you hire the annoying kid next door who makes everything more complicated than it needs to be to do it for you.

My thoughts exactly...that's how it works in the rest of the country:thumbsup:

[nonlinear]

[blueToy]

Originally posted by nonlinear
crystal meth is a helluva drug.



no, please don't.


I'm backkkkk .

Why not ?

As for the drug reference , I wouldn't know .

[blueToy]

Originally posted by nonlinear
road quality depends more on snow removal practices than it does on total snowfall. the reason the roads suck here is because we have shit, or non-existent, snow removal policies. cities like winnipeg or minneapolis get far more snow but have way cleaner roads.

Actually , from what I've read , Winterpeg gets 10cm less snowfall on average then Calgary , and has 500,000 less folks living there .

So what do you know about Calgary's snow removal policies ?

[blueToy]

Originally posted by nonlinear


I'm sure if a metropolitan area like MPLS/St. Paul with 4 million people can figure it out, bumfuck calgary can figure it out too. :rolleyes:

i don't understand why calgarians are willing to accept silly excuses for not doing anything instead of just making decisions and gettin' 'er done. i mean shit - this snow removal problem has been going on FOREVER. people bitch about it year after year, yet nothing ever changes. same thing with the damn ringroad, which has been in the works for 50 fucking years, and I still doubt it will ever get finished. :banghead:


Again , snow removal problems going on forever ? How long you live here ???

Also , bumfuck Calgary ? Why don't you get your Yankee ass out of here if you don't like it ? Tied to a apron string or something ? Professional whiney bitch ? Move back to your land of freedom and hypocracy . I love the fact we don't have to move our vehicles everytime it snows . I could give a rats ass if it snowed two feet . Being prepared is the key . Being a whiney ass is for little girls .Your Mom have any boys ?

[Abeo]

Originally posted by blueToy


Actually , from what I've read , Winterpeg gets 10cm less snowfall on average then Calgary , and has 500,000 less folks living there .

So what do you know about Calgary's snow removal policies ?

Alright, how about Ottawa, which gets 100 more cm of snow per year, has the same amount of people, and plows all of its roads? Sure its budget is twice that of Calgary, but it spends 15 million of that in salt, and about that much in snow removal and snow dump operations, so the plowing portions of the budgets are close. I see a huge disconnect between what we spend and what we get here.

[johnboy27]

Originally posted by Abeo


Alright, how about Ottawa, which gets 100 more cm of snow per year, has the same amount of people, and plows all of its roads? Sure its budget is twice that of Calgary, but it spends 15 million of that in salt, and about that much in snow removal and snow dump operations, so the plowing portions of the budgets are close. I see a huge disconnect between what we spend and what we get here.
There is no point in comparing snow removal for any other city in Canada to anywhere in Alberta, nothing will ever change here. The snow removal budgets for Calgary and Edmonton are about the same as some cities with 700,000 less people and 1/2 the roadways. It really is ridiculous.
Halifax Nova Scotia's snow removal budget is the same as Edmonton snow budget, Halifax gets way more snow much more often and has the same amount of km's of roadways as Edmonton but has 660,000 less taxpayer yet within a couple days of a snow fall all roads are passable. Halifax got 96 cm's of snow in one day with wind gust up to 100 km's an hour( meaning some drifts were 10+ feet high) . They shut the downtown core down for 2 days but after those two day everything was pretty much back to normal.

[Abeo]

Originally posted by johnboy27

There is no point in comparing snow removal for any other city in Canada to anywhere in Alberta, nothing will ever change here. The snow removal budgets for Calgary and Edmonton are about the same as some cities with 700,000 less people and 1/2 the roadways. It really is ridiculous.
Halifax Nova Scotia's snow removal budget is the same as Edmonton snow budget, Halifax gets way more snow much more often and has the same amount of km's of roadways as Edmonton but has 660,000 less taxpayer yet within a couple days of a snow fall all roads are passable. Halifax got 96 cm's of snow in one day with wind gust up to 100 km's an hour( meaning some drifts were 10+ feet high) . They shut the downtown core down for 2 days but after those two day everything was pretty much back to normal.

I guess I want to know is, dollar for dollar, why is Calgary's (and, from what I hear, Edmonton) snow removal so bad? Where is the money spent?

[nonlinear]

[johnboy27]

Originally posted by Abeo


I guess I want to know is, dollar for dollar, why is Calgary's (and, from what I hear, Edmonton) snow removal so bad? Where is the money spent?
I am willing to bet half the cost each year is the cost of sand, I see the sand trucks rolling down side streets dropping sand on top of unplowed streets. Kinda pointless don't you think. They are driving by with their blades in the air dropping sand on top of loose snow only to have to come back in an hour and do it again. Seems it would make more sense to skim the loose shit off the top and then drop the sand and let it sit on the hard paccked shit.
On top of the costs of laying the sand down the other costs involved with sand is the clean up in the spring, when sand sits in the catch basins all winter and then into the spring you need hydro vacs to get rid of it where as salt just washes away with no cleanup needed in the spring. Saves millions every year. On top of that the wages paid to the guys out here are likely somewhere around 10+ dollars an hour higher than most other provinces.

[atgilchrist]

Here's the solution:



The Mig-15 Snow Blower

Anyone who wants to make use of spare Mig-15 parts will appreciate these custom snow blowers. These particular examples were spotted in Russia and use Klimov VK-1 engines.
http://media.techeblog.com/images/mig15snowblower.jpg

They also use these to melt ice on other planes engines -- while waiting on the cold Russian airport runways -- and train tracks.
http://media.techeblog.com/images/mig15snowblower_2.jpg

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/the-mig-15-snow-blower