(Montreal) The next winter season will cost the City of Montreal nearly 200 million, according to Maja Vodanovic, member of the executive committee.
An army of workers will have to spread various abrasives, plow snow and clear snow from some 10,000 kilometers of Montreal streets this winter, as well as sidewalks and certain cycle paths.
Earlier in November, Mayor Valérie Plante cited rising snow removal costs – up to 100% from one year to the next in some boroughs – as one of the reasons why she had to increase taxes. property by 4.9%, on average, in 2024.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Mme Vodanovic, who is also mayor of the Lachine borough, said the total snow budget this year is estimated at $197 million, or about $10 million more than last year. She blamed the rise on high inflation, labor shortages and climate change.
“Many of our contracts are increasing, unfortunately, with interest rates and with the shortage [de main-d’œuvre] and especially truckers,” many of whom are in their sixties, she noted.
The cost of snow removal trucks has literally exploded in recent years, according to the borough mayor, due to supply chain disruptions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, where many parts were manufactured.
And while some might think that milder winters driven by climate change would reduce costs, there are other challenges. Montreal is experiencing more freeze-thaw cycles, forcing it to intervene more often to avoid blocked pipes and dangerous ice.
Heavy snowfall used to occur between November and March, but is now concentrated in January and February. The result is that snow removal companies run all their machines at the same time for a shorter period of time, hiring more people and forcing them to work overtime.
Other Canadian cities are also seeing their costs increase.
Edmonton says its snow removal budget is growing every year and will reach as much as $68.5 million by 2026, a cost that the city’s general supervisor of field infrastructure operations, Val Dacyk, attributes in part to the change climate, particularly hot temperatures that create slush and flooding.
Winnipeg budgeted $36.26 million for fiscal 2023, up from $34.7 million in 2022, although actual snow removal costs were higher, including $87.18 million in 2022.
The winter maintenance budget in Mississauga, near Toronto, increased by $1.1 million to $26.82 million for the 2023 fiscal year.
Even Vancouver, with its much less harsh climate, has seen its costs rise steadily, from 3.8 million in 2018 to 7.4 million in 2022, during which time the amount of snow the city receives has also increased.
Toronto said its 2024 winter maintenance budget of more than $100 million per year is still being developed, but will be “higher than 2023” due to “the rising costs of equipment, labor and general market conditions.”
No other city in Canada spends as much on snow as Montreal. In addition to being the snowiest major city in North America, its downtown area is dense, meaning there’s little room to put snow and it’s too cold to let it melt , mentioned Maja Vodanovic. These conditions force the City to undertake complex snow removal operations several times a year, which include towing cars, clearing snow in the middle of the street before loading it into trucks and transporting it to one of the most 20 dumps, an operation which has been estimated in recent years at around 1 million per centimeter of snow removed.
Jean-Philippe Meloche, assistant professor of urban planning at the University of Montreal, says that managing snowfall constitutes a major challenge for elected officials due to the variable nature of the weather and the anger of citizens if it does not. It’s not well done. “Winter is an obsession for municipal officials.”
Additionally, the snow removal market is not competitive, according to Professor Meloche, which reduces cities’ options for contractors and leaves the industry vulnerable to collusion – although he added that using private companies Private companies are generally cheaper than using municipal workers.
Costs are increasing due to inflation in machinery and labor, but the quality of snow removal is also increasing, he observed.
In recent decades, the city dumped polluted snow into the rivers surrounding the island of Montreal, rather than taking it to snow dumps, he added. Additionally, Montreal and other Canadian cities expected residents to stay home during bad weather.
“Today, we know that if there is a storm, people are going to go out anyway, and we don’t want them to get hurt, especially because they can claim damages from the City after injuries sustained on icy sidewalks. »
Maja Vodanovic agrees. The mayor of Lachine, who is originally from Croatia, says she remembers how impressed she was the first time she saw snow and the reaction of municipal teams. “It’s like an army that clears the snow and makes the city livable in winter,” she noted. “It’s quite simply an achievement and in my opinion we don’t recognize it enough. »