Town officials will be meeting with the Olds and District Chamber of Commerce this month to further communicate with its membership on how snow clearing will be done this winter.
Larry Wright, the town's director of operations, said operations staff has had continuing conversations with Chinook's Edge School Division, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools, Olds Hospital and Care Centre and the Olds and District Chamber of Commerce on how the town intends to implement its snow clearing policy for the coming season.
“Policy can work and we've got a lot of variables in the policy, but communication is (key),” he said.
Town officials received complaints from some business owners and motorists this past winter about the timeliness of snow clearing on certain streets after a major snowfall in early March.
Wright noted since the town started giving yellow bus routes priority in 2011, that has taken on added importance in making sure routes and stops are clear.
Wright said the town will continue to work with both school divisions on two-way communication so that when there are no buses running, the school divisions advise the town and when there is a water main break, for example, or detour in place because of another emergency, the town would communicate with the school divisions about that.
“It also includes the hospital. When we have blizzards, the hospital area and the seniors area and the Vistas are closed off very rapidly due to the snow and the wind effect,” he said, adding that the new emergency services area and Holy Trinity School also suffer from the same effect.
“We're looking at much bigger … communication efforts and we're also looking at simple communication efforts,” he said.
One of those simple communication efforts this season will include placing tall, skinny construction pylons in key areas when a blizzard is about to take place. Those pylons will indicate that snow in that area will be cleared within 48 hours.
The town also wants to get the word out to businesses that its snow storage area near the sewage treatment plant is open to everyone to dump their snow. As the town grows, Wright said new snow storage areas are being built into development agreements so it's not as far to take snow that is cleared away. One of those areas includes the Chinook Meadows development in the southwest section of town.
“We have also started to make provision for (snow storage areas) in our new Area Structure Plans. If you're going to keep a community in balance and keep your snow haul costs down, you need strategic locations,” he said.
