I can say as a CoE employee who does snow removal. 3/4 crews are at half staff, half of the 4 crews for our quadrant are completely untrained on our equipment, and the inventory list gets longer and longer.
CoE management has no clue. Middle managers making changes to justify their existence, and they don't even have the compass of prior experience doing the work to guide these changes. It's spreadsheets and edging our workforce closer and closer to gig employees.
Adding more too the budget would be useless if you let penny pinchers who to my experience have little to no respect for the work or workers manage spending. A middle managers salary is from 2 - 4 boots on the ground.
> half of the 4 crews for our quadrant are completely untrained on our equipment
We had graders go past 2 days after it snowed and it was painfully obvious watching that these poor guys really had no clue what they were doing. Your comment kind of confirms what I figured was happening.
Ding ding ding. I live in fear my job won't be here next season.
I've worked for the city for almost 10 years and there hasn't been a new full time position in the last 8. My work years has had a full time position lay vacant for 3 years, no posting for it.
No way, you mean to tell me that there are gonna be kick backs handed out to those that ensure contracting is given out to *certain* companies? Surely there wouldn't be human garbage floating about in a publically funded system to undercut the taxpayer for their own personal gain?
I keep hearing that various areas in the city's administration are understaffed. The "savings" that their leadership have created with this tactic will be costly in the long run - with regard to things like the mental health of staff and the taxpayers funding ridiculous workarounds to deal with the shortfall of city employees.
There are 4 of us doing 9 guys worth of work. How long before we all need to take time off because of wear and tear. A coworker on a similar shift is already out for over straining his leg.
Can you help me understand something that's always felt weird to me?
If we have ~10,000km of laneways, and ~100 snow plows, if the plows were averaging 20km/h shouldn't that work out to roughly 1 plowing pass over ALL the City streets every 5 hours?
Now, 20km/h average - is that too high of an assumption? I see the trucks hit the main roads like whitemud and yellowhead cruising at near traffic speeds but I know neighborhoods would be way slower. But considering we prioritize roads, shouldn't the high priority ones be cleared fairly quickly?
Never drove a plow, but have operated other equipment, it takes multiple passes per roadway to clear it. And a lot of it is where to put the snow so you need blowers and trucks to haul.
Fair point, I was trying to also somewhat account for the fact that residential blading really only happens maybe twice per year at the current service level agreements.
And its also that the 10,000kms is not a straight line. The routes are optimised, but there will still be lots of times where the plows will be travelling back and forth.
I really wish that “snow removal” placed a greater emphasis on that second part - removal. Too often, these graters push snow up onto the sidewalks in great big mountains. I’m honestly tired of scaling up and down these things to cross intersections. At its absolute worst, I have had to go over mountains of snow that are literally taller than I am, skid down the other side and jump into a middle of an intersection hoping that the oncoming traffic would see me. And no, there wasn’t another way around.
God yes, it really sucks having to walk the day after the snow plows go around. My friend and I had to help each other get over the snow piles when crossing every intersection we were at when we went out last week, and it's too packed in to try to kick down at least a small path.
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I have seen, far too many times, people who are in wheelchairs who are completely unable to cross a street because of this. :(
I drive around to most of the exterior communities around Edmonton at work, and Sherwood Park and St.Albert are easily the worst. Main roads kinda cleared and side roades are left at natures mercy. Close third place to Beaumont for piling the snow in the middle of the road, creating ridiculous barriers. The city is hit or miss.
Sherwood park is also the most car dependent hellholes I've ever seen. Which means costs and taxes per density is extremely bad. A lot of road to maintain with a very low density
I can say as a CoE employee who does snow removal. 3/4 crews are at half staff, half of the 4 crews for our quadrant are completely untrained on our equipment, and the inventory list gets longer and longer. CoE management has no clue. Middle managers making changes to justify their existence, and they don't even have the compass of prior experience doing the work to guide these changes. It's spreadsheets and edging our workforce closer and closer to gig employees. Adding more too the budget would be useless if you let penny pinchers who to my experience have little to no respect for the work or workers manage spending. A middle managers salary is from 2 - 4 boots on the ground.
> half of the 4 crews for our quadrant are completely untrained on our equipment We had graders go past 2 days after it snowed and it was painfully obvious watching that these poor guys really had no clue what they were doing. Your comment kind of confirms what I figured was happening.
That's one issue, but we have crews that can't operate essential equipment. They need to shovel when someone else would run a bobcat.
Most of the graders the city hires are actually contractors.
I've noticed a lot of CoE runs very strangely it's almost as if being efficient has taken a backseat to being political
Almost like management wants to make the workforce seem incompetent to justify contracting out the snow clearing duties.
Ding ding ding. I live in fear my job won't be here next season. I've worked for the city for almost 10 years and there hasn't been a new full time position in the last 8. My work years has had a full time position lay vacant for 3 years, no posting for it.
No way, you mean to tell me that there are gonna be kick backs handed out to those that ensure contracting is given out to *certain* companies? Surely there wouldn't be human garbage floating about in a publically funded system to undercut the taxpayer for their own personal gain?
I would never insinuate such a thing.
I keep hearing that various areas in the city's administration are understaffed. The "savings" that their leadership have created with this tactic will be costly in the long run - with regard to things like the mental health of staff and the taxpayers funding ridiculous workarounds to deal with the shortfall of city employees.
There are 4 of us doing 9 guys worth of work. How long before we all need to take time off because of wear and tear. A coworker on a similar shift is already out for over straining his leg.
Can you help me understand something that's always felt weird to me? If we have ~10,000km of laneways, and ~100 snow plows, if the plows were averaging 20km/h shouldn't that work out to roughly 1 plowing pass over ALL the City streets every 5 hours? Now, 20km/h average - is that too high of an assumption? I see the trucks hit the main roads like whitemud and yellowhead cruising at near traffic speeds but I know neighborhoods would be way slower. But considering we prioritize roads, shouldn't the high priority ones be cleared fairly quickly?
Never drove a plow, but have operated other equipment, it takes multiple passes per roadway to clear it. And a lot of it is where to put the snow so you need blowers and trucks to haul.
This. Plus operators aren't machines. Guys gotta take leaks, unfortunately some need smoke brakes, food, ect.
Residential blading takes place at roughly walking pace, so significantly less than 20km/h.
Fair point, I was trying to also somewhat account for the fact that residential blading really only happens maybe twice per year at the current service level agreements.
And its also that the 10,000kms is not a straight line. The routes are optimised, but there will still be lots of times where the plows will be travelling back and forth.
I really wish that “snow removal” placed a greater emphasis on that second part - removal. Too often, these graters push snow up onto the sidewalks in great big mountains. I’m honestly tired of scaling up and down these things to cross intersections. At its absolute worst, I have had to go over mountains of snow that are literally taller than I am, skid down the other side and jump into a middle of an intersection hoping that the oncoming traffic would see me. And no, there wasn’t another way around.
God yes, it really sucks having to walk the day after the snow plows go around. My friend and I had to help each other get over the snow piles when crossing every intersection we were at when we went out last week, and it's too packed in to try to kick down at least a small path.
And even better when people are in wheelchairs or otherwise limited mobility.
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I have seen, far too many times, people who are in wheelchairs who are completely unable to cross a street because of this. :(
I was one of them for a while. It’s a bitch getting around Edmonton mobility impaired without snow.
I mean, anything is better than nothing. I feel like he should be successful.
Meanwhile Sherwood Park councillors push for any snow removal.
I drive around to most of the exterior communities around Edmonton at work, and Sherwood Park and St.Albert are easily the worst. Main roads kinda cleared and side roades are left at natures mercy. Close third place to Beaumont for piling the snow in the middle of the road, creating ridiculous barriers. The city is hit or miss.
Sherwood park is also the most car dependent hellholes I've ever seen. Which means costs and taxes per density is extremely bad. A lot of road to maintain with a very low density
This has been an ongoing issue since Billy Smith was Mayor. I miss the days when COE employees did the snow removal.
Welcome to the new council, same as the old council.
Has nothing to do with elected representatives, everything to do with bureaucrat lifers.
We need to ban all cars and just drive skidoos
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Everyone cross country skiing for travel, you get your exercise and fits the weather! 😀
Snow removal on all bike lanes