City unveils its new snowplow

The City of Yorkton has added a new snow plow to its fleet.

The $215,000 unit was unveiled at a press conference at the Department of Public Works Monday.

Mayor James Wilson said the new unit was made necessary as the City has taken on the responsibility of snow removal on 15 kilometres of highway previously looked after by the province.

Wilson said the province and cities across the province have entered into new agreements regarding care of connector highways, the result being the City is now clearing the snow on "certain major roadways around the city."

The highways include sections of Highways #9, #10, and #16A, leading into Yorkton.

The new connector policy of the province does "provide some funding operational wise," said Wilson, adding it "doesn't provide capital funding for a truck."

Trent Mandzuk Director of Public Works with the City said the new truck will provide some efficiency within the snow removal fleet which is responsible for 170 lineal kilometres of streets.

The new truck however will primarily look after connector highways, and comes with features to aid in that job. It has an 11-foot front blade, and a nine-foot side arm blade, giving it 20-feet of coverage, explained Mandzuk, adding the largest grader in the city fleet used for snow removal has only a 14-foot blade.

The new truck can "travel up to 60-kilometres an hour," which "is about twice as fast" as the City's graders.

In addition the truck is multi-purpose with a sand and salt box and spreader. A build in monitoring systems tracks "how much sand and salt is applied based on (truck) speed," said Mandzuk, which should reduce salt use.

The sanding unit is removable so that when the truck is not needed for snow and ice maintenance it can be used as a regular dump truck.

In terms of general snow removal, urban connectors, emergency routs and arterials are cleaned first, followed in order by collector streets, residential streets and finally cul-de-sacs.

The City also supplied information explaining when snow removal takes place.

"Plowing on residential streets begins when snow accumulation exceeds four inches. It takes five days to complete one round of snow removal across the City. One round of snow removal can exceed $75,000 depending on the snow fall."