The City of St. Albert has all its snowclearing equipment on the road in an effort to plow and sand priority roadways to accommodate afternoon and evening rush hour traffic. Meanwhile, St.
The City of St. Albert has all its snowclearing equipment on the road in an effort to plow and sand priority roadways to accommodate afternoon and evening rush hour traffic.
Meanwhile, St. Albert Transit has juggled its service for the rest of the day Thursday to make up for delays on commuter routes into Edmonton.
Since the snowfall began at approximately 6:30 a.m., city crews have cleared priority roadways for emergency services and transit centres and will continue to plow and sand priority roadways, says a city news release.
The city says its crews will be working around the clock to address major roadways and will then follow up with snow clearing on sidewalks, parking lots and trails as time and conditions permit. Once arterials and collector roadways are cleared, the city will assess all residential roadways to determine snow clearing requirements.
St. Albert Transit has brought in a raft of its regular buses to provide local service. This means the articulated or "bendy" buses on commuter routes will only travel as far as Village Landing, said Will Steblyk, St. Albert Transit's planning and customer service manager. That allows the buses servicing commuter routes to simply turn around and return to Edmonton, instead of continuing on to local service in St. Albert.
"I think everything is running behind schedule," said Steblyk, adding that buses were getting caught up in slow-moving traffic. "Everything is delayed."
The articulated buses were experiencing problems earlier in the day with potentially getting stuck on local routes, Steblyk said. The smaller, regular-sized buses will have fewer problems navigating those streets.
It will mean a change for commuter passengers, said Steblyk. Passengers who would normally stay on a commuter bus for local service after its return to Village Landing will now have to disembark and board a second bus for local service.
"This allows the commuter buses to get back to Edmonton quicker to pick up more passengers," he said.
Steblyk asked riders to be patient.
"The commuter (buses) are still operating. (Riders) might not be able to catch them at their scheduled time but the commuters will eventually show up at their stop in Edmonton and they will take you back to St. Albert."
