City crews working on getting sidewalks clear as soon as people need them

With snow fresh on the sidewalks of Estevan, city crews are looking to get those cleared off for all the pedestrians looking to take advantage of a bit more warm weather.

To that end, crews need to both figure out which paths need to be cleared first and who need to clear out which areas.

With kilometers of paths to work on, there's plenty to clear for the city.

Road and Drainage Manager Norm Mack explains that along major roads in Estevan, it's a main priority to get those clean.

"Doiwn 13th, down Souris, we treat them a priority one. We've got a skid steer, someone's going into the skid steer right after a storm because a lot of folks do walk down King Street, they walk down 13th, they walk down Souris, and we treat them as travel areas where people go to work."'

They're not alone in that work, as the parks department also has some sidewalks and pathways to clear out.

Parks Manager Rod March says their priorities are similar, as they try to make foot traffic flow smoothly.

"For the most part, the priority for parks with respect to the pedestrian corridors, are the sidewalks first since they're covered under a bylaw. Then we move through the area that connects where the schoolchildren walk, trying to get through Pleasantdale. It depends on the equipment that's available, then we move onto the pathways."

Both departments have lots of ground to cover, so it may take a bit of time to get those sidewalks cleared off.

"As you can see there, it's about 22 kilometers total and it's all over the city, so we just want to thank the citizens for having some patience," said March, "Because it does take some specialized equipment to get in between a lot of these areas, so it's not just when a skid steer is available, a skid steer cannot get into some of these areas. So we will get to it as we can."