Strathmore considering expansion of snow removal services 

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town of Strathmore is considering the expansion of local snow removal and mitigation services to include Hillcrest Boulevard in the 2026 budget. 

Coun. Brent Wiley, who made the motion to examine the cost of including the road for snow removal services, said residents have made comments about how snow piles up during the winter. 

“The residents say what happens is because they are in the north corner on the west side of town, the wind comes in there and [snow] just collects on that street,” he said. “I get what they are saying, and it certainly has been brought to my attention before that there might be some problems there.”

Currently, the annual budget allocated by the town for snow removal is $575,000. This equates to approximately 15 per cent of the total roads budget. 

This includes costs related to wages, overtime, on call, pickle mix and calcium, and contracted services.

So far this snow season, which includes coverage from November 2024 to April, a little over $375,000 has been spent. 

Snow removal in Strathmore per kilometer costs the town $1,753.58. Services in Strathmore and costs are comparable to other municipalities, according to the Canadian Municipal Benchmarking Network

Donna McCallum, operations manager with the Town of Strathmore, explained council has previously brought forward accessibility concerns which have been raised by residents in regard to bus stops, crosswalks, and mailboxes located along priority snow clearing routes. 

“We have 170 crosswalks in total on all the priority routes; we have 55 mailboxes, and there are 22 bus stops on the priority routes,” she said. “Each crosswalk, mailbox, or crosswalk would take approximately 10 minutes to clean. The average takes into account travel time and clearing. We estimate that this service level increase would add about 42 hours of labour to each snow event.”

The cost increase associated with such an increase has been estimated to be between $280,000 and $560,000 annually – representing a tax increase between 1.65 per cent and 3.3 per cent. 

Wiley’s initial motion indicated examining “snow removal.” Coun. Denise Peterson suggested an amendment to the initial motion adding “mitigation” to the language to address other snow removal options and contingencies.

“It is a longstanding issue, and I really appreciate the fact that our operations have known this and have not ignored it either,” she said.

The costs of expanding snow removal services will be brought forward to a future council meeting during budget deliberations.