The response to Toronto’s winter ice cleaning does not meet the standard required, and the city needs to create a one -year -round winter operating unit.
It is one of the recommendations being made to improve the city’s winter maintenance operations during the major storm events.
The city was asked to review the snow removal process that it took a total of 18 days to remove snow across the city, with several February storms to Torontonians were buried under more than 50 centimeters of ice.
City manager Paul Johnson said that when it comes to major snowfall incidents, the city continuously decreases.
“Failure is our overall plan and structure. We can’t just remove the ice fast,” Johnson said.
“Generally, if there are events around ice and it occurs in 10 to 15 cm range, our response is quite consistent and our reaction in terms of working is quite good. However, when we have a major winter phenomenon, we continuously reduce that mark.”
Johnson said that the construction of a dedicated year -long winter operating unit would be a strong overall plan to respond to the major ice events and will be able to treat the ice events that are as an emergency.
Johnson said that ice removal requires a more strong contract approach, as well as strengthening communication with the public to share and get communication. He recommends that the temporary grip on 311 service calls, as snow falls, be removed so that the authorities can give better answers to those issues as they arise.
The recommendations are ready to go before the meeting of the Mayor’s Executive Committee next week for debate.
