Snowfall tests two Halifax pilot projects
Posted Jan 13, 2012 10:30:30 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The 10 centimeters of snow which fell on metro Thursday evening was a typical winter event, which happened to offer Halifax Regional Municipality a backdrop for conducting two separate pilot projects.
HRM staff is looking at the effects of using liquid brine instead of road salt and, separately, there are new rules for the overnight winter parking ban.
The director of transportation and public works said this was only the second time the ban has been put into effect this season and there needs to be more snow days before he can say whether motorists are complying more or less with the new rules.
“In previous years, we had the ban on the full time, right from Dec. 15,” Ken Reashor told News 95.7. “So, we were only looking at tickets on a cumulative basis because we were comparing it to the previous year. Right now we don’t have a cumulative winter ban. We only have two nights. It may be unfair to compare any given night last year with this year.”
Halifax Regional Police say the preliminary numbers show 164 vehicles were ticketed and 26 vehicles were towed overnight Thursday for not complying with the ban.
It is a significant increase from the first time the ban was in effect this season when police issued 240 tickers and 41 vehicles were seized.
Reashor said the numbers do not necessary indicate an improvement in compliance.
“It was a fairly significant event,” he said. “It was right before Christmas. Does that make a difference because it’s right before Christmas because of visitors?”
Reashor said so far he has received no complaints about the pilot project, which he suggests is a good thing.
In previous years the ban was in effect every night between Dec. 15 and March, but this year HRM is only putting the ban in effect when there is a declared snow or ice event.
Last night, HRM’s winter works crews were plowing and salting the streets as well as testing out their own pilot program.
Crews tested the effects of using liquid brine on one side of the street on Commodore Drive while using road salt on the other side.
The superintendent said the two are similar in that they both effectively decrease ice on the roads, however brine is more cost efficient and can be considered safer for drivers.
“For example we could treat a road that may have an area where frost comes out early in the morning. We could treat that road the day before,” Gord Hayward told News 95.7. “Then that salt would be on the road, working, as the frost comes out. You wouldn’t get the frost or the slippery roads. In that, it would be safer on the roads.”
Because the brine can be spread at a worker’s convenience, it is considered less costly. As well, Hayward said his crews need to use three-to-four times more salt than they do brine to keep the roads from icing over.
However, Hayward said it’s too early to estimate the cost savings for taxpayers.
