Discussions

M. Biletski said "Don't know who was doing the loader work on 6th Street just north of Park Avenue last night but I want to say Thank You to that operator. After the grader made it's pass the loader showed up and with some awesome finesse, cleared the ends of the driveways, opened a path we had made from sidewalk to street in front of our house, backbladed snow away from the curb then scraped it up and moved it....there was not even a ridge left at the driveway. And this was at every yard we can see from our house. Whoever you are, thank you so much from a couple of VERY appreciative residents of this block. "

That's awesome to hear! Mine wasn't cleared very well but at least some were cleared. Thank you. We're blessed to have people that worked tirelessly for us.

Thanks for your update. That answered my question I guess they just missed my street this time. Great job by the City all around when we get these storms. It's got to be tough to get your shifts all changed around.

Off the Cuff said "Thanks for your update. That answered my question I guess they just missed my street this time. Great job by the City all around when we get these storms. It's got to be tough to get your shifts all changed around. "

was missed call it in.

Oryx said "Your parking lot? The city doesn't clear parking lots, so don't blame them. It's the responsibility of private contractors to do clearing in business/commercial lots. Kind of unfair to blame the city. "

Park Ave Dog Park parking lot is in need of a good cleaning out. Also the garbage cans there are overflowing. Sent an email to the city a couple of times now. Still the parking lot is plugged up with snow.

And so did just about everyone on my street but they never came.

Thanks guys. From the time I go to bed to the time I wake up in the morning, I can take my main route to get to work in the morning, that's a sign that someone worked all night to make sure that we could get from point a to point b. No not everyone's going to be happy, but what would the world be like then. We need the complainers!

As I was pulling out of my driveway, a car that had just passed me waiting did a 180 as she passed by. The road is quite slippery and the ruts are high. Guess it just grabbed her tire. Thank goodness there was nobody else on the road but us.

JoBeth said "As I was pulling out of my driveway, a car that had just passed me waiting did a 180 as she passed by. The road is quite slippery and the ruts are high. Guess it just grabbed her tire. Thank goodness there was nobody else on the road but us. "

extra care has to be taken while driving because the ruts are hard as hell. Slow down please people.

the walking path on Kirkcaldy has been cleared (thank you), only issue is you have to walk over a 3 foot wall of snow to get on or off. There is on opening by Patterson, and one at the lights at Conservation Drive. So you are basically stuck unless you mountain climb to get off. Its the only way to walk safely as the North sidewalks have not been cleared.

Kind of surprised the city hasn''t started removing snow from the boulevards along the main streets yet. Defiantly in places like in front of JR Reid School on 26th. How is anyone going to see the crossing guards when there is 6 feet of snow piled in front of them on the boulevards. Then on top of that the road is icy. Hopefully nothing bad happens and people pay attention to the lights at the crosswalk and people actually press the lights when crossing and don't just step out into traffic.  
 
Edited by The_Young_Man, 2017-01-06 14:56:14

Johnbisonbear said "    JoBeth said "As I was pulling out of my driveway, a car that had just passed me waiting did a 180 as she passed by. The road is quite slippery and the ruts are high. Guess it just grabbed her tire. Thank goodness there was nobody else on the road but us. " extra care has to be taken while driving because the ruts are hard as hell. Slow down please people. "

I think she had already slowed down before she got to me....thinking I didn't see her? Just surprised me it happened. She must have been trying to speed up again.  
But yes, be careful people...the roads are so rough.

The_Young_Man said "Kind of surprised the city hasn''t started removing snow from the boulevards along the main streets yet. Defiantly in places like in front of JR Reid School on 26th. How is anyone going to see the crossing guards when there is 6 feet of snow piled in front of them on the boulevards. Then on top of that the road is icy. Hopefully nothing bad happens and people pay attention to the lights at the crosswalk and people actually press the lights when crossing and don't just step out into traffic.     Edited by The_Young_Man, 2017-01-06 14:56:14"

started Downtown, Rosser and Princess. Those areas will be done as we progress through the city.

If we could understand the methods you all are going about clearing the streets. That way, we could be on our way home and see the graders rolling through a few neighborhoods down. And have the understanding that you would be coming along in the next day, or days. It could be helpful.  
 
Or, maybe just to make that information available in some area. That way, the people who want to make the effort to be informed can. And maybe those people can be like these civic members of society, and inform other people in their day to day routine. Like the old days, when people had things to talk about. Might not be much, but its something.  
 
Maybe that's the old man that lives inside of me.  
 
Either way, the streets look great. Thanks for all the good work. And thanks also to the cars who don't run me down when I'm out walking along the back streets. Because the sidewalks aren't always clear.

Here's a couple videos of the process that's used for picking up snow.  
 
 
 

the city is hiring.  
 
https://jobbank.brandon.ca/AvantiCareerConnector/Job/Details/170004

LoadedGun said "If we could understand the methods you all are going about clearing the streets. That way, we could be on our way home and see the graders rolling through a few neighborhoods down. And have the understanding that you would be coming along in the next day, or days. It could be helpful.     Or, maybe just to make that information available in some area. That way, the people who want to make the effort to be informed can. And maybe those people can be like these civic members of society, and inform other people in their day to day routine. Like the old days, when people had things to talk about. Might not be much, but its something.     Maybe that's the old man that lives inside of me.     Either way, the streets look great. Thanks for all the good work. And thanks also to the cars who don't run me down when I'm out walking along the back streets. Because the sidewalks aren't always clear. "

Makes alot of sense to me. Trevor's reply in the other thread seemed to be that not every single person has facebook or twitter or listens to the radio so if we can't inform 100% of the people we won't bother informing anyone. Again, I think the crews do a good job. I have experience operating a loader, so I have a pretty good idea what they're up against. I just think if they made an effort to let folks know what areas they're working on it would be helpful to everyone, themselves i:ncluded.

this page will give an idea of where we are and what area will be next. The map isn't real time but delayed. And only functions when we have a large snow clearing event.  
 
http://gis.brandon.ca/snowclearing/#  
 
But when we do these city wide clearings, it's difficult to give more exact times of when we will be in a particular area. There is no schedule that can be posted in advance.

You guys did a great job after that christmas eve/ day snow fall of some 10 inches. we're on the west end and the streets were down to almost bare and driveway approaches very well done. who ever was on the equipment new what they were doing.  
 
the only 2 things, I wish was that the Gis snow clearing map was actually on the city web site as a catagory so it would be easier to look up rather than trying to remember or book mark the GIS snow clearing map. I know that's IT dept that needs to look after that.  
 
secondly, and i know that this is difficult but if you could post the order or the areas that you are going to, not when your getting there but the order.  
 
we know where you are at present so by deductive reasoning we should be able to figure out which evening or day you might be in the next area. It would give an opportunity to move cars. I looked at the map one night and decided to take a chance that you would not be in our area that night and I was wrong. oops sorry. but having said that you guys did an awesome job cleaning out around the cars.  
 
keep up the good work.

goshdarn said "You guys did a great job after that christmas eve/ day snow fall of some 10 inches. we're on the west end and the streets were down to almost bare and driveway approaches very well done. who ever was on the equipment new what they were doing.     the only 2 things, I wish was that the Gis snow clearing map was actually on the city web site as a catagory so it would be easier to look up rather than trying to remember or book mark the GIS snow clearing map. I know that's IT dept that needs to look after that.     secondly, and i know that this is difficult but if you could post the order or the areas that you are going to, not when your getting there but the order.     we know where you are at present so by deductive reasoning we should be able to figure out which evening or day you might be in the next area. It would give an opportunity to move cars. I looked at the map one night and decided to take a chance that you would not be in our area that night and I was wrong. oops sorry. but having said that you guys did an awesome job cleaning out around the cars.     keep up the good work. "

is probably hidden on the city's page somewhere.  
 
And there no real order we use, it's where ever that's not garbage day.

How hard would it be to set up a City of Brandon Snowclearing FB and Twitter account, and have the supervisors post to them a couple times a day? The radio stations would pick up the posts and share them on air. Word would get out pretty quickly.  
 
Am I missing something? This would literally take 15 minutes to set up initially and 2-3 minutes a few times a day between tasks.

JackAzz said "How hard would it be to set up a City of Brandon Snowclearing FB and Twitter account, and have the supervisors post to them a couple times a day? The radio stations would pick up the posts and share them on air. Word would get out pretty quickly.     Am I missing something? This would literally take 15 minutes to set up initially and 2-3 minutes a few times a day between tasks. "

but this is Brandon, no matter what, it's never good enough.

JackAzz said "How hard would it be to set up a City of Brandon Snowclearing FB and Twitter account, and have the supervisors post to them a couple times a day? The radio stations would pick up the posts and share them on air. Word would get out pretty quickly.     Am I missing something? This would literally take 15 minutes to set up initially and 2-3 minutes a few times a day between tasks. "

the city does have a sizeable IT department and various supervisors in each department but one wonders where our Director of Communications comes into play? Not part of the job des:cription? That's communicating isn't it?

Trevor B said "    JackAzz said "How hard would it be to set up a City of Brandon Snowclearing FB and Twitter account, and have the supervisors post to them a couple times a day? The radio stations would pick up the posts and share them on air. Word would get out pretty quickly.     Am I missing something? This would literally take 15 minutes to set up initially and 2-3 minutes a few times a day between tasks. " but this is Brandon, no matter what, it's never good enough. "

no matter what, it's never good enough.  
 
What do you mean Trevor?  
 
Sounds like a good idea to me.

Trevor B said "we started at Noon on Boxing Day and we are nearly finished clearing the snow after a massive snowfall. And that's roughly 5 days. And that came a few weeks after the last big snowfall. And quite frankly, I'm ready to get back to my regular shifts. But the job still isn't done, we are now going to have to start hauling away a lot of the snow, which is another big job.     Also what most residents don't realize, Brandon is one of the rare cities that clear driveways. "

"Also what most residents don't realize, Brandon is one of the rare cities that clear driveways. "  
 
My parents were in from Winnipeg when our area was being cleared. My dad was all ready to go out and shovel a windrow at the end of our driveway until I told them the city will do it. His jaw just dropped! LOL  
 
My poor dad shoveled not 1 but 2 4-foot-tall windrows last week in Winnipeg, one at his house and one at my grandmother's. Hard as rock. Poor guy.

Winnipeg clears driveways too. But not back lane driveways.

Adam said " Another as much as 10cm in progress today. Lot of respect for the job that folks in snow removal do and for the fact that they do have to separate the odd complaint from legitimate questions and constructive feedback that citizens have every right to express. The one thing I have to wonder is where they're going to start putting it all. The snowbanks at intersections are at a point where there's a lot of caution and trust necessary to turn off of one street and onto another. Seem to remember a few years ago a mass hauling effort when snow on meridians had built up to a similar point, but as far as I've seen it's only 18th that's been done so far (Provincial?) "

has been clearing their medians last week and still working on them. The City has been doing Downtown areas.

I don't understand why IT or DOC can't update the City of Brandon's website about the progress? Along with the website, update their other social media accounts also? Keep everything current and consistent. It would be very simple if they just created an eBrandon account to publicize everything Brandon also.  
 
The current snow removal update on their website is January 3.  
 
Trevor, why can't city officials update us like you have been doing? Isn't it someone else's job? Surely, someone at the city is getting paid for exactly what you're doing here? Updating all of us.  
 
Does the city still employ a director of communications?

School has started back again and JR REID crosswalk hasn't been done yet....as of yesterday.....and the crosswalk on Richmond where kids would cross to go to meadows is a bad one too. I think school crosswalks should be priority. You can't even pull up to jr REID without being half in the driving lane because 26th hasn't even been graded properly yet.