City transportation officials are expecting climate change to bring winters that have fewer but larger snowfalls.
"While we may have fewer events, we are having wilder, wetter weather and those snow falls that are happening tend to be bigger," deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie told reporters at a news conference about city winter preparations on Wednesday.
"In January of 2021 we received 55 centimetres in 18 hours. The last winter season, the 2023-24 winter season, we received approximately 55 centimetres all winter," said transportation operations director Vincent Sferrazza.
Recent bylaw changes will help prepare for major winter storms, McKelvie said
"In the past, the city was only able to declare a major winter event when a certain amount of snow had accumulated five to 10 centimeters, and that was usually during the event," she explained
McKelvie continued, "Now the bylaw allows us to declare a major event days before, so that there are snow routes across the city where parking is prohibited when a major snow event is declared."
City officials made several new announcements today.
Among them, the transportation department said it is looking into using artificial intelligence to determine how much salt to apply to roads — too little is ineffective, and too much is bad for the environment.
"There's technology that exists where the salt spinners can be deployed based on a sensor that is reading the condition of the road and of the atmosphere," Sferrazza said.
"It can detect how much snow is falling, it can detect how warm it is and it can also detect the temperature of the road, and if, in fact, the driver is able to navigate safely by assessing the traction of the tires," he explained. "It takes all that information and then it programs the salt spinner to apply the appropriate amount of salt."
The city's snow-clearing budget has increased from $140 million to $160 million for reasons to do both with inflation and a reevaluation of how often crews might have to be sent out onto the roads, Sferrazza said.
The city sees about 700 water main breaks a year, largely in the winter months. As old pipes are replaced with new ones, that number has fallen over time, McKelvie said.
