Residential ice ruts causing crashes and stuck vehicles, some Edmonton residents say

Derek Dupuis just happened to be outside for a cigarette Tuesday night when he saw a hatchback car smash into the side of one of his neighbours' pickups.

The collision was caught on his security camera. It shows the vehicle suddenly veer to the left before hitting the driver's door of a truck.

Dupuis believes the deep ice and snow ruts on his residential road are to blame.

“The car had so much pressure built up from trying to get over the rut, as soon as it grabbed the cement it just shot straight into the side of the truck,” he explained to CTV News Edmonton.

“It scraped all the way along and ripped the whole front end of her car off. I then immediately went out to make sure it wasn’t going to be a hit-and-run, and to of course make sure the driver was OK.”

Dupuis is not the only Brintnell resident that feels the ruts are dangerous.

“It's been honestly horrible over here. I'm lucky to drive a vehicle that's big and I have good tires, but I know other members of my family, other members of the cul-de-sac worry about getting stuck all the time. The two rows form and if you get out of those rows, you’re done,” said Kai Ongaro.

She said she hasn't seen any sign of plows on her street all winter.

“If people are getting into accidents and people are getting stuck daily, clearly something needs to be done about it,” Ongaro said.

As CTV News Edmonton was interviewing Dupuis in front of his house his security camera captured an Amazon delivery driver getting stuck in the middle of the road.

Dupuis said he sees vehicles getting stuck all the time.

Ice ruts in the Brintnell neighbourhood of Edmonton on January 26, 2023 (Marek Tkach/CTV News Edmonton)

“It just makes it more dangerous. And then they will make a rut outside of the main rut and any car that grabs that will shoot into one of the parked vehicles,” he said.

“I've contacted the city many times for our road and the last time this cul-de-sac was plowed was in 2019.”

Residential roads are at the bottom of the City of Edmonton's snow clearing priority list. The goal is to have all streets bladed to a five centimetre snowpack within eight days of starting a cycle.

Last week, while announcing the winners of the "Name a Plow contest," director of infrastructure operations Mark Beare said unseasonably warm weather delayed residential clearing.

On Monday, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said some local streets are "impassable" and residents are frustrated.

A Phase 2 residential parking ban came into effect on Tuesday night so crews could begin blading.

A city supervisor said Thursday that she couldn't comment on crashes but that crews began clearing residential roads in Brintnell earlier that morning.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Marek Tkach and Karyn Mulcahy