A City of Medicine Hat grader works along Fifth Street SW in front of the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital on Jan. 4, 2022.

By Chris Brown

City crews grading icy ruts on streets, sanding where needed

Jan 4, 2023 | 4:26 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Warmer weather and a lack of new snow have provided some relief for motorists on the city’s main streets like Dunmore Road and Division Avenue, where the City of Medicine Hat’s superintendent of operations says wheel paths are now mostly bare and dry.

That’s allowed crews to move to other important areas like bus routes and the hospital area, and into neighbourhoods with two priorities.

“One is to provide traction control on these Category 2 and 3 roads, explains Trevor Funk. “But we also have graders running around and trying to get rid of ruts on these residential roadways, and the hospital area included because we have, we definitely have some rutting. With the melt, we always experience that type of situation.”

The rutting can be seen and felt on streets across Medicine Hat. The roads in front of and around the hospital are high-priority areas, and graders were out there on Wednesday.

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Funk says the graders use a technique called flatblading to knock down the ruts and move the snow into the lower areas. He says they repeat that process when needed and that melt expected in the next few days will help.

Next week they’ll work on getting that snow off of city streets.

“We’re going to be starting some night-shift snow removal and again our focus will be on some of these areas where you can’t put the snow anywhere, there’s no place to store it really. So the hospital area is a place that we do snow removal; put out no parking signs, that sort of thing,” says Funk. “But next week our main focus for snow removal will be on the major roadways like the Maple Avenues, Division Avenues. Areas where we store the snow and which is going to kinda free up some space for future snowfalls.”

Funk says the full complement of five sanders has been out this week for traction control on bus routes and residential roads and will continue next week as long as the weather holds. The city’s fleet also includes two plow trucks and four graders.