EDMONTON -- A proposed change to the City of Edmonton’s Snow and Ice Policy calls for a city-wide parking ban on residential roads, so crews can better clear away snow. 

“The biggest feedback we got last winter tied into the residential areas,” Gord Cebryk told CTV News Edmonton. The deputy city manager says many Edmontonians complained to 311 about large ruts, and windrows in neighbourhoods last winter. 

The proposed solution is to have crews roving through neighbourhoods and clearing snow proactively. The current strategy is to wait for a snow pack to form before clearing any residential roads. 

The new approach would require a parking ban for all of Edmonton, when snow conditions require it. 

“It’s a city wide parking restriction, but it would be applied as we go into a particular neighbourhood,” Cebryk said. “The goal is to do a better job for residents, and the one thing that residents can do to help us is by moving their vehicles off the road.”

The parking ban would be lifted in a neighbourhood once it’s been cleared. Residents who leave their vehicle on the road during the ban could receive a ticket from bylaw officers patrolling streets in a car equipped with an automated license plate scanner. Vehicles could also receive a “courtesy tow” that leaves their vehicle out of the way, but not impounded. 

To do this work, the city would have to hire contractors to help out, something Cebryk says can be done within the existing $60-million snow and ice budget. 

However, the report estimates neighbourhood blading after every major snowfall could cost an extra $20 million, while clearing cul-de-sacs could add $6 million to $12 million to the budget. 

Council will discuss the proposed policy on July 8, with a full report on last winter’s performance without access to calcium chloride is due later this summer.