After the heaviest snowfall the city has seen in a single day so far this season, City of Edmonton officials said snowplows are preparing to clear bus routes, and a seasonal parking ban will go into effect early Friday morning.

City officials said as of 7 a.m. Friday, parking on affected routes will be prohibited.

“You can go that much faster, you can do a better job, we can do a faster job,” Director of Roadway Maintenance Bob Dunford said. “[The parking ban] is to help us with our effectiveness, but more importantly to ensure we can keep transit running.”

Roads that are affected by the seasonal parking ban are marked by seasonal no-parking signs.

The city said enforcement of the parking ban will be strict, and anyone that parks on them will face a $50 ticket, and may be towed at a cost of $100 while the ban is in effect, even if snowplows have already passed through.

“Our officers will be out patrolling the city, and any vehicles parked along those signed bus routes will be ticketed, and or subject to ticket and towing,” Erin Blaine with City of Edmonton Parking Enforcement Services said.

The city’s entire fleet of snowplows and sanders has already been working around the clock on arterial routes and major streets throughout the city since the snow started falling.

Officials are also asking for the patience of Edmonton drivers, and say packed ice is making the clean-up more difficult – as a result, it’s believed the parking ban could remain in effect throughout the weekend.

“I believe it will take more than 48 hours this time around to get to it,” Dunford said. “I suspect that we will have the ban in effect until Monday morning.”

Edmontonians can keep track of the parking ban and other winter road maintenance work through the City of Edmonton website, through the city’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and by signing up for their e-mail notification system.

As for traffic collisions a day after the major snowfall, police said as of 4 p.m. a total of 132 crashes had occurred on city streets, with 14 of those involving injuries - while on Wednesday at about the same time a total of 207 crashes had been reported.

With files from Sonia Sunger