By Kevin Woodhouse
www.thesuburban.com
In order to facilitate post snow storm collection, the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro introduced its Snow Alert campaign last Friday at a press conference held at the borough hall.
“We evaluate our snow clearing procedures every year,” Mayor Dimitros Jim Beis told the assembled that included director general Dominique Jacob and Claude Lachance, head of public works.
Following the heavy snowfall around the Christmas holidays, Beis and council “called an emergency meeting to find better solutions to improve service and Snow Alert was created.”
With only five percent of the entire borough living without access to a driveway, too many vehicles were left on the road so that homeowners would leave space for contractors to clear out the private entrances. However, parked cars in the street create chaos for other motorists, children walking to school and forcing public works employees to dodge parked cars while trying to clear a street.
Another problem is that snow not collected can harden to ice blocks, causing more delays for eventual snow clearing operations.
The borough is sending out a reminder card to all homeowners, the borough’s online social media sites as well as broadcasting the Snow Alert throughout the borough’s network of stationary and mobile electronic billboards.
Beis has asked public security personnel in their help but told The Suburban that “fines will not be issued right now as we want to sensitize the public who will know not to park on the street during snow clearing operations.”
“We want to be able to offer our citizens a better service,” said Lachance. “If our workers do not have to work around parked cars, then snow and sidewalk clearing will be more efficient.”
Beis said that “if workers have to bypass a street because of too many parked cars, it disrupts the system and it can take a long time before they have a chance to go back instead of getting the street done in the first place.”
The mayor plans to work in collaboration with the borough’s various certified private snow contractors in order to come up with real time solutions. “The contractors have to understand that for us, clearing the streets of Pierrefonds-Roxboro is our priority and a contractor’s role is secondary,” Beis told The Suburban.
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