By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles

Lethbridge Road Crews Benefit from Mild Winter

Mar 2, 2016 | 12:42 PM

LETHBRIDGE: A mild winter has meant a much easier season for City of Lethbridge road crews.

Snow removal crews have been activated 12 times so far this winter, compared to 32 times last year.

Transportation Operations Manager Lee Perkins explained that it’s allowed them to get an early start on some maintenance, “The City of Lethbridge has been fortunate enough to have a recycler in use, so we’ve been using hot asphalt. Motorists should notice around the city that numerous patches and numerous potholes have been looked after with the hot asphalt product, which is a tremendous bonus for this time of year.”

Normally, “cold mix” for road repairs in the winter.  However, the mix gets very soft in warmer weather, which means it has to be replaced again in the spring.

The city is also saving money on sand for roadways, as they have managed to use about 5,000 tonnes less this year.

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The third major benefit coming from the lack of snow has been the city’s ability to start street sweeping early, but Perkins pointed out that there’s still more to come, “Just so residents know, this is not the spring sweeping program, and of course once the spring sweeping starts in April there will be notification and a media blitz. Right now this is just a cursory sweep through town and we’re looking for some problem areas.”

Perkins did caution that things could still change, as a late snowstorm wouldn’t be a surprise for our region.