St. Catharines sidewalks finally get snow plowed, 7 days after the storm
Published January 23, 2022 at 1:35 pm
Even though the big south-west Ontario snowstorm started a week ago tonight (January 23), there are still pockets to being plowed out in St. Catharines.
While workers are usually out there in the middle of the night, this morning at 7 am, three sidewalk cleaning tractors of various sizes and two dump trucks from PG Inc got to work on the north side of St. Paul St.
While both sides of the downtown street had one-metre-wide paths cleared out for pedestrians since Wednesday, the sidewalk is fully three-metres storefront to street on the north side and at spots, up to five metres on the south side.
That means there were far greater priorities around the city – residential side streets and cul de sacs, sidewalks near schools and parking lots, to mention a few.
The process is something to behold. The three tractors manoeuvre the snow in tandem – the smallest getting it away from the storefronts and the two larger ones pushing it onto the street. Once in the street, those tractors push it into a tight pile so the larger can dump it in the trucks.
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To get that 60-metre stretch of sidewalk from Ontario St to William completely cleared – the plows had to be carefully near the many street planters – took slightly more than an hour. This isn’t the flat-out plowing that’s done on the street, huge vehicles moving straight up and down.
No, this is a much trickier Sidewalk Ballot where three small tractors have to work in unison, hoping never to accidentally collide.
And again, 60 metres in more than an hour? When civic leaders ask for patience during snow clearing, the fact is the average resident has no idea how long it can take.
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