Due to significant snowfall over the past two days, snow and ice control crews are continuing to clear priority one and priority two routes, per council’s snow and ice control policy. Crews returned to priority routes last night following heavier than expected snowfall overnight, and will continue to clear routes in day, afternoon, and night shifts to bring the roads to reasonable condition before heading into priority three routes including those in residential areas.
Multiple factors, including temperatures, accompanying weather systems, and total snow accumulation affect operations, timelines, and decisions about equipment deployment.
Priority routes
The City of Prince George’s snow-clearing operations maintain roads and sidewalks in reasonable conditions throughout winter.
During a snow fall, city roads are categorized into three snow-clearing priorities, indicated by three colours on the city’s snow clearing map. Council’s snow and ice control bylaw categorizes the city’s 735km of roads and 189km of sidewalks into three snow-clearing priority routes:
Priority one (red) roads include main arterial roads, downtown roads, priority hills, the hospital area, civic facility entrances, and priority parking lots and pathways. These routes are often cleared during the nightshift in order to reduce the interference with higher daytime traffic volumes.
Priority two (green) roads include bus routes that are not main arterial roads, and commercial and industrial roads.
Priority three (grey) roads include residential roads and lanes, and all remaining civic facility parking lots and pathways. Residential route clearing also takes garbage collection days into consideration.
Parking Restrictions
- Motorists are also reminded that parking restrictions are in effect from October 15 to April 15 each year to help with snow operations:
- On-street parking is prohibited from midnight to 7:00am downtown.
- On-street parking is prohibited from 10:00pm to 7:00am on Priority One roads and hills, the Hospital District, and a number of other designated roads.
- On-street parking is prohibited from 8:00am to 6:00pm in residential areas. Parking on the side of the street with odd house numbers is permitted from 6:00pm to 8:00am unless otherwise posted.
- Illegally parked vehicles are subject to a $50 ticket per offence and/or may be towed.
Note: plowing around parked vehicles can slow down operations and create hazards for other vehicles by creating windrows in the street.