City crews working around the clock to remove snow

Ottawa is grappling with a lot of snow this winter and the city is working hard to keep up with removing it all.

Snowbanks are at an all-time high, but most Ottawa residents commend the city crews for their hard work.

"The snowbank height, this is pretty high this year. It's not usually like that," said local resident Marc Desjardins.

Roads in some neighbourhoods has been reduced to one lane because of snow accumulation, causing traffic nightmares. However, residents understand that the city has to prioritize clearing the main thoroughfares first.

City crews have been working around the clock to remove the massive snowbanks on residential streets.

"It's January, we're getting snow, but they're doing a good job cleaning it," said Central Park resident Leanne Bennett. "They've been up and down a few hours now. And they've cleared everything."

However, the city has not been able to clear the snowbanks any quicker due to winter storms.

"Typically, a full removal operation takes about two weeks to complete," said Bryden Denyes, the City of Ottawa's area manager for urban roads. "When we're doing snow removal operations and we have a winter storm, whether it's snow or freezing rain, we have to pause our snow removal operations and then move into storm treatment."

Last year, Ottawa got 105 centimetres of snow by this point in the winter. This year, it's almost double with 205 centimetres falling since Nov. 1.

Residents are reminded not to park during snowbank removal, as they risk being towed.

Norma Viau, another Central Park resident, expressed concern about the high snowbanks and said, "The accumulation of the high snowbanks, it's dangerous. When you turn you can’t see the car coming."

The City of Ottawa spends $82 million for winter operations, and this snowy winter of 2023 will test the budget's limits.

"I think they do a great job," said resident Robert Dehartoj. "I've been here most of my life and there's snow and there's been lots of it and sometimes there's not. I think they're doing as much as they can."