FALL STREET SWEEPING BEGINS ON OCTOBER 20 AS THE CITY PREPARES FOR WINTER

Despite the warmer weather this week the City of Saskatoon is busy preparing for winter and this includes the start of the Fall Street Sweeping program on October 20 after a successful pilot program in 2013.

“While nobody is hoping fall will end and we aren’t wishing for snow anytime soon, we are ready to go should it happen,” says Pat Hyde, Director of Public Works. “Sweeping leaves in core neighbourhoods that have dense tree canopies before it snows will improve drainage in the spring and make sweeping the streets easier.”

The neighbourhoods selected for fall sweeping this year include City Park, North Park, Holiday Park, King George, Riversdale, Caswell Hill, Nutana, Varsity View, Buena Vista and Westmount. This is a weather dependant, 13-day program. Please watch for the high-visibility no parking signs in these neighbourhoods minimum of 36 hours in advance. Find the schedule at saskatoon.ca and click on Building Better Roads.

Residents are reminded not to push leaves from your boulevard or yard onto the street. Not only is it against the City Bylaw, doing this makes sweeping difficult and sweepers may have to skip a street if excessive leaves begin to delay the schedule.  Please use your City of Saskatoon Green Cart or take your leaves to our free compost depot.

School zones will not be included in the fall sweep this year due to the potential dangers with large equipment around children. The leaves left behind in these areas will not amount to enough to restrict drainage in the spring.

“Increased funding this year has also allowed us to make improvements to our snow and ice programs,” says Hyde. “We will be introducing some new features which will ultimately help with our goal of making it easy and safe for people to move around Saskatoon this winter.”

Examples of improvements include the 18-vehicle snow train, introduced earlier this year, which will be used to remove collected snow along the barriers of bridges and overpasses along Circle Drive to enhance motorist safety.  Graded snow piles will be also be removed from school zones more frequently to improve children’s safety, and additional private contractors will be utilized to help city crews with snow grading operations.

This year, the City will also use a technique called pre-wetting which involves spraying the salt and sand with a liquid before spreading it on the roadway to improve traction on Circle Drive and high-traffic streets. Wet salt and sand sticks to the road better, even in extreme cold conditions, when it would otherwise be swept off by traffic.

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.