Two recent changes that were made in the City of Regina to start the new year that impacted snow removal have been received with mixed results from residents.
The City amended a new bylaw requiring all property owners, residential and commercial, to clear snow and ice from their sidewalks within 48 hours of the snowfall. The City also made changes to its Winter Maintenance policy that saw residential roads plowed after 15 centimetres of snowfall compared to 25 centimetres.
With January providing plenty of snowfall, both of those changes have been put to work.
Mayor Sandra Masters says both of those changes have been met with some criticism.
“Frankly, a bit of frustration that they are keeping their sidewalks clear, and the plow comes through and puts street snow back on their sidewalks,” she said. “Clear something we have to work on. Also, we have heard some kudos in terms of folks being really pleased with both snow clearing from the City around transit operations and also just that ability to have paths to get there.”
Masters added that another complaint they have been receiving is not everyone is following the new bylaw.
“We do have some complaints that have come in about some folks doing their part and others not doing their part, which I think was a little bit expected,” she said. We are very much doing a ‘watch and see approach to this, in terms of compliance rate.”
“We clearly have some folks not happy; we have lots of folks reaching out to the snow angels program through their community associations,” Masters continued. “Following this kind of winter season, and we’ve had plenty of snowstorms in the last little while, we can come back and determine where there are shortcomings and anything that needs to be an amendment.”
Overall, Masters added that it had been so far, so good.