Sudbury sidewalk, road maintenance season starts

Greater Sudbury city staff have officially started the fall and winter sidewalk and road maintenance program. (Lyndsay Aelick/CTV News)

Sudbury -

Greater Sudbury city staff have officially started the fall and winter sidewalk and road maintenance program.

Contract crews begin every year on Nov. 1 and city staff start Nov. 15.

With the exception of last year, the city has gone over budget in the past five years due to weather conditions.

"We have seen ourselves going over budget with extreme snowfalls, snow accumulation and just freeze- thaw cycles with the changing weather environment," said Brittany Hallam, acting director of linear infrastructure services for the City of Greater Sudbury.

"Luckily last year we did see favourable weather and we were in a surplus position. The difference in snow accumulation, we had 1.7 metres of snow accumulation last year compared to about 3.2 metres the year previous."

The city has up to 50 pieces of equipment that can be deployed during a significant weather event, she added. Everything from graters to sidewalk and roadway plows are used and this year staff hopes to see the benefits of the new addition to sidewalk maintenance.

"We do have a pilot project for the mechanical ice breaker -- this was started in 2020," Hallam said. "It’s a piece of equipment that attaches to a sidewalk plow and it allows for us to break up the hard packed snow and ice on the sidewalk in order to create a smoother walking surface for pedestrians."

She wants residents to know that even though the snow isn’t here right now crews are ready and waiting for that day to arrive, and the city is resourced to handle an average weather season, Hallam said. Winter maintenance runs until the end of April.