Priority None: Mel Lastman's looking smarter every day

I was living in Toronto during the storm of 1999, and I remember it well - buses sliding backwards down hills, switches on the subway freezing, and the hoots and catcalls from the rest of the country after Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to help with snow removal. As someone who grew up in Ottawa, it was a little hard to understand why Toronto was so ill-equipped to handle the snow, and word at the time was that Mel and the rest of Toronto City Council hadn't yet signed the contract for snow plowing and removal and that's why the city was brought to its knees by this early-season storm. Oops. Ottawa used to get at least two blizzards a year - nowhere near as many as Montreal. But I remember snow piles that were at least five feet high.

Little did I think, however, that I'd end up living in a place where it snows (a lot) and yet the city's snow removal strategy was 'wait till it melts.' [Update November 15, 2012: from the minutes of the Lethbridge City Council meeting held November 13, 2012. When the Deputy Mayor and another member of Council (who had read my blog post) raised the issue of snow removal and snow plowing at this meeting (thank you!), the City's Director of Infrastructure Services indicated 'Priority 4 roads. (local streets) are not plowed or sanded even in an extreme event.  Intersections may get sanded when icy conditions are identified as a hazard.' [emphasis added] So despite the fact Lethbridge's public transit system is inadequate and you may not be able to get to a bus, that's pretty much it - you're on your own.]

Welcome to Lethbridge, AB, and chinook country.