Burnaby’s Mayor Hurley not in favour of regional snow removal

The City of Burnaby did a “pretty good” job of managing snow removal given the circumstances during last week’s winter storm, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley has concluded.

As it always does in Metro Vancouver, the heavy snowfall last Wednesday brought havoc to the streets in the region—particularly as it pertained to the bridges across the Fraser River, which were closed for hours, leaving many commuters stranded.

But despite some hiccups in Burnaby, particularly around Royal Oak, Hurley said he believes the city did well enough with snow removal—and he’s not in favour of a regional snow removal program.

“It’s never completely smooth, of course, but … it was a perfect storm, if I could use that word, the other day, where right at rush hour you had that dump of snow,” Hurley said, adding that the bridge closures caused people to drive through Burnaby rather than along the freeway.

“People were getting off the freeway and trying to race through Burnaby and causing about three times more traffic than we’re used to.”

Hurley said most of the issues were in places with provincial jurisdiction—namely freeways, bridges, and overpasses.

He added that there were issues with people trying to drive without winter tires.

“We saw the results of that on Canada Way and Royal Oak,” he said.

“Once one or two vehicles go sideways, there’s no one going anywhere, and then of course, the snow plows can’t get there. … It wasn’t perfect, but we had done a lot of great work putting down brine, putting down salt, and we got the roads cleared in a reasonable amount of time.”

Last week, in the wake of the snow storm, councillors Daniel Fontaine of New Westminster and Linda Annis of Surrey called for a regional “snow summit” to be chaired by Metro Vancouver board chair and Delta Mayor George Harvie and Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming.

In making the call, Fontaine said the summit should “work on a regional plan that does better next time,” something that would require a combined effort from municipalities and the province.

But Hurley said he didn’t believe regionalizing snow removal would help with the problem.

“We wouldn’t have any interest in the overall Metro Van looking after it. We haven’t seen good results of those combined efforts,” he said.

He added that he doesn’t believe a regional snow removal program would be more efficient, and it might lead to in-fighting between communities.

“The big things would be, ‘Well, this area got preferred over that area,’” he said. “At least right now we have control over our streets.”