Travel advisories lifted, snow-clearing crews back on Edmonton streets

Travel advisories for areas south and west of the capital city that followed Monday's storm were cleared the next morning. 

Rain and snow on Monday left roads slick enough overnight that Alberta's emergency alert system issued alerts for Parkland County and Highway 2 as far south as Bowden. 

The alerts were cleared by 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., respectively. 

Only nine collisions were reported to Edmonton police during the morning rush hour, compared to 37 the day before. In total on Monday, 212 crashes were reported to police. 

40 PER CENT OF RESIDENTIAL BLADING DONE

Snow and ice-clearing crews worked overnight, only stopping for a period when high winds made dumping snow difficult. Edmonton's field operations supervisor Andrew Grant said they would continue to spread a heavy chip and sand mix on Tuesday and respond to issues reported through 311. 

In an update Tuesday morning, he estimated crews have completed about 40 per cent of residential blading. The list of neighbourhoods that still need to be bladed down to pavement include those that were cleared before the holiday snowfall. Counting the hours already dedicated to the task, Grant expects the work to end up taking more than four weeks altogether. 

He had little to say about Mayor Amarjeet Sohi calling Edmonton's snow-clearing budget and policy inadequate. 

"The fact of the matter is we can't be everywhere at once, so we need to look at how our policy is structured and framed and then what our resource level is," Grant commented.  

His department is working on a report about "any equipment, staffing and budget changes" that are needed to improve snow and ice service, which is due to council in April.