Residential streets stuck in a hazardous winter rut

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This article was published 19/02/2022 (1380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The residential street Lucas Hrynyk regularly parks on is nothing but trouble this winter.

“The roads here are a mess, there’s no other way to say it,” Hrynyk, who lives in central St. Boniface, said Friday. “The ruts are so deep you could honestly use them for luging.”

He’s been watching drivers spin out on the ice while driving down Langevin Street from his window for weeks. On Wednesday evening, it was his turn. He ended up stuck so badly it took seven neighbours and his roommate to get him out — an incident that left him grateful but with a bit of a bruised ego.

“It’s a massive safety hazard,” he said. “I can see from my window people driving down the street and I’ll see a car that’s on the edge of the rut, they’ll fall right into the rut, and it’s like they’re on a track. It’s impossible to really turn.”

Unrelenting blizzards and deep freezes hitting Winnipeg over the last two months have resulted in many residential streets becoming more than just a bumpy ride. Deep ice ruts and snowy conditions have left motorists and pedestrians alike slipping and sliding.

From the beginning of January to Feb. 14, 2021, Manitoba Public Insurance reported 13,200 auto collision claims filed. This year, in the same time span, 22,500 preliminary collision claims have been filed — with 80 per cent coming from the Winnipeg region.

The huge spike can be attributed to the recent severe weather, said MPI spokesman Brian Smiley.

“We’ve certainly seen an impact,” he said. “It’s been a nasty, snow-filled winter.”

An array of issues — from short-staffing due to COVID to a jump in building fires in the city — have meant MPI’s contracted tow truck company has been stretched to its limit, Smiley said.

Vehicles in an accident that have to be towed due to posing a road safety hazard are moved that day, but, as issues persist, vehicles on side streets or parking lots may not be moved for four or five days.

CAA Manitoba has logged similar spikes in service. Compared to the much milder winter last year, CAA has received over six times more calls for towing this year: 2,576 calls from November to January in 2020-2021; 16,951 in the same time period 2021-2022.

It can be attributed both to the extra snowfall and the more relaxed COVID measures, a spokesperson for CAA said, adding the majority of CAA calls have been for battery service and boosts.

Hrynyk, a CAA member, said he was turned away when he called the service asking for help moving his vehicle due to the conditions on the road.

CAA Manitoba president Tim Scott said this is a possibility, if a tow truck driver determines road conditions might make it unsafe to move a vehicle.

“If our driver determines that it is not safe to pull out an inaccessible vehicle due to an unplowed road, we will ask the member to call back when the road has been cleared,” he said in an email.

Residential streets have been plowed three times this winter, on the high end of normal; for the past few years, it’s usually been one or two by this time of year, Winnipeg manager of street maintenance Michael Cantor said.

There are several events that can trigger the city’s response. One, for example, is five centimetres of snow, which will send plows out to priority streets. This year, nearly every snowfall has had that result.

“In addition to that we have high winds, we have cold temperatures, almost continuously since December,” Cantor told the Free Press. “The plowing is harder, it’s hard with the equipment, you have more breakdowns, and you are not able to use salt on our (priority 3) streets.

“And that’s why you keep plowing, but you keep getting ruts. It’s just a more challenging year overall, it’s kind of a perfect storm.”

The city has received multiple complaints about residential conditions, which Cantor said vary widely, depending on street parking and traffic on location. He acknowledged road conditions are “far from being good.”

Cantor said the city is expecting to perform a fourth residential plow at some point next week, and is working to get more sand on those streets until then.

A residential street plowing operation can cost between $2 million and $4 million, the city said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca