Taming the Snow Cowboys

Multi-tonne vehicles hurtle down residential streets at full speed through red lights, piloted by exhausted employees for whom every second counts.

If we were at war, we could understand.

But it’s not about war. It’s about picking up… snow.

Our colleague Philippe Teisceira-Lessard showed on Monday how much snow removal operations are transforming Montreal into a wild west. Farewell to the Highway Safety Code, hello to infractions and dangerous manoeuvres.¹

This is not new, you will say. It’s true.

Every Montrealer who cares about life has long learned to be wary of snowcats, spreaders, graders, snowblowers, tow trucks and other trucks that storm our streets after storms.

It’s not for nothing. Year after year, snow removal operations kill three Montrealers, not to mention the injuries (the number of them is not the subject of official statistics).

Again this weekend, the video of a grader rolling at breakneck speed along an Outremont park, ignoring the stop signs, scandalized the citizens.² In January, a snow removal truck driver filmed himself behind the wheel swearing at the police and broadcast the whole thing live on TikTok. ³

When did we come to believe that heavy vehicle racing on our streets is inevitable? That this is the only way to pick up snow in a city?

These practices are, on the contrary, intolerable.

Clearing a metropolis the size of Montreal will always be a heavy and complex operation. But it doesn’t have to be done in such haste, disregarding the most basic security.

The City of Montreal says it is doing everything not to encourage the frenzy. Contracts are awarded for fixed territories to prevent those in a hurry from getting bigger deals. And the compensation is paid to the volume of snow. Whether it picks up quickly or slowly does not change the envelope.

The problem is that the contractors who do business with the City in turn hire subcontractors and pay them as they see fit.

In the end, it doesn’t matter the mechanics. The responsibility to make sure things run smoothly is the City’s. Our elected officials cannot only look at the finality – the cleared streets – by turning a blind eye to the means used.

If private drivers behave like cowboys, it’s up to the City to pin its sheriff’s star and maintain order (the traffic controllers who work there are obviously insufficient). If the contractors the City hires cannot guarantee that the work is done safely, it penalizes them.

Following our colleague’s article, the City told us that it wanted to send a “communication” to contractors to remind them of the importance of respecting the highway code. Let’s be serious: this is clearly insufficient.

Aref Salem, leader of the official opposition, proposes instead to establish a “black list” of bad students – the Office of Inspector General already maintains one for corrupt companies, which can no longer receive contracts from the City . That would have more bite.

One thing is certain, a major cleaning is essential. Seeing behemoths running red lights fits very poorly with Project Montreal’s “Vision Zero” (zero deaths and serious injuries on the roads) and with the values ​​that this administration advocates.

Ultimately, all Montrealers will have to examine their conscience. We would all like our streets to be plowed as soon as the last snowflake falls, and even before if possible. Criticizing the supposed slowness of snow loading operations is a popular sport.

However, if it is crucial that the sidewalks and streets are cleared and de-iced quickly, we can live with parking spaces cluttered with snow a little longer, even if it causes inconvenience.

Getting out of the parking lot quickly should never come at the expense of our collective safety.