Expect snow clearing changes this winter as Ottawa tries to get costs under control

The City of Ottawa wants to sendsnowplowsdown residentialstreets after 10centimetres of snow falls, instead of seven.

It also intends to hire extracontractors to go out on roadsafter bigwinter storms, and make sure one suburb doesn't get plowed before another.

The recommendations stemfromtwolong-anticipatedreviews done by staff and the consulting firm KPMG. They looked at howto reduce costs, especiallywhenthe city keepsblowing its winter operations budget.

• 4th deficit in a row for city's winter operations budget
• ANALYSIS|Ottawa's return to snow clearing standards could see service slip for some

"There's an expectation that we have excellent service for snow removal. We're a snowy capital," said Coun. Keith Egli, who chairs the transportation committee.

"We wanted to maintain as much ofthat service as we still could but at the same time recognize there are financial constraints onwhat we can and cannot do."

How could snow clearing change on city roads?

The proposedlower standard relates specifically toresidential streets.Instead of the trigger being seven centimetres of snowfall, council isbeing asked to bump that up to10 centimetres.

"There will be no change whatsoever in how we deal withbus routes, arterials, sidewalks, bike lanes," said Egli.

Some minor collector roads have been getting extra plowing and saltingbecause they're lumped into the same routes as arterial roads. Expect those minor collectors to bedealt with six hours into a storm,like they're supposed to be, instead of three.

Will the city try anything new?

It wants to test outhavingplows reverse their routes through neighbourhoods, so they don't travel the same direction every time.That way, the same streets won'talways beplowed first orlast.

Also, the sameside of the street won't always getthatfirst pass of the plow, and have a bigger snowbank allwinter long.

You might even see a garbage truckwith an attachable plow pitch in.Staff say this has been done in some U.S. cities, and want to try it out on one truck.

How much more contracting out will the city do?

The city will use the$500,000 it hopes to save from increasing the trigger point to 10 cm, and use it tohirean extra 20 contractors to speed upplowing and salting after a big storm, according toEgli.

Right now, 70 per cent of the winter operations fleet is city-owned, and the other 30 per cent of machinery is run by private contractors. That same ratio goes for staff.

The city's auditor found other cities contractout more of the work, andsuggested the city revisit that idea.

Contracting out did not make it into these recommendations, but Egliwouldn't be surprised if it eventually comes up for debate.

How much moneydoes the city hope to save from all this?

Annually, about $6 million total.

Note that doesn't quite cover the deficits of recent years, and there's no promise these proposed changes can keep winter operations on budget.

"You can do your best guesstimate of how much snow we're going to get, but at the end of the day Mother Nature decides," said Egli.

Why has the city been going over budget,anyway?

The city has added 390kilometres of roadand 226kilometresof sidewalk in the past five years, but KPMG found budget increaseshaven't kept pace.

The citywould need to spendan extra $7.6 million each year to keep upits current standards, said KPMG.Incidentally, that's the exact amount winter operations logged as a deficit for 2015.

How does Ottawa stack upagainstother cities?

"The service levels approved by council are significantly higher than those required by the province, and are higher than those provided in other cities," wrote KPMG.

London, Kingston, Mississauga, Sudbury and Markham all have lower standards than Ottawa does, KPMGfound. Toronto's standards aresimilar, but itdoesn't plow sidewalks.

The city has also been found tosurpass its already high standards.

Ottawa also gets a lot of snow 223 centimetresper year on average. Qubec City and SaintJohnare the only major Canadian cities that receive more.

Does any of this have to do with lawsuits?

The city routinely deals with lawsuits from people who are hurt slipping on a road or sidewalk they say wasn't maintained properly. The legal department reports it's received 4,000 such claims between 2010 and 2015.

City lawyers write that, in the vast majority of cases, they canshow the citymet its legal obligations, but they can bolster theirdefence if council approves these changes.

When will changes be debated?

Transportation committee meets, and will hear from the public, next Wednesday.

Egli knows people aren't thinking about snow storms now, but says the issue has to be dealt with this summer because plow beats and schedules are already being prepared for the coming winter.

City council is then set to discussthe changes to winter operations on July 13.

Mayor Jim Watsonhas said in the past thatthe solution is not to throw more money at winter operations to deal with annual deficits, but to look at reducing the city's costs and standards, just like this report recommends.