As part of a pilot project, the City of Orillia stopped applying sand to parking lots and roads this past winter, and city staff have been asked to report on how things went.
At Monday’s council meeting, Coun. Tim Lauer requested a staff report on the measure for June 5, as well as a general overview of the city’s winter control activities.
“From my preliminary experiences, I think it's worked, but I would like a report to come forward, and I know there's a lot of interest,” Lauer said. “Certainly, through the first couple storms, I got a lot of inquiries … and I think people would be very interested.
“The sooner we could do it after winter the better, because people still have it fresh in their minds,' said the long-time Ward 4 councillor.
Lauer said he expects the results of the program to be positive.
“There's a lot of sides to this issue,” he said. “(City staff) pointed out to me that because there's not as much sand on the road, we're not losing our (road) markings as fast … which has always been a huge problem, right?”
Council agreed to Lauer’s request for a report.
The city previously applied a mixture of salt and sand to its roads and parking lots, but in a presentation to council last September, city staff highlighted environmental effects, sand’s ineffectiveness at improving friction, and cost savings as major factors to reduce sand usage.
At the time, city staff noted that most sand blows off the road with vehicle speeds greater than 40 km/h.
“In general, (sand and salt) do not work the same way to treat winter road conditions. Salt melts snow and ice, while sand provides road traction and makes it harder for roads to refreeze,” Andrew Schell, the city's general manager of environment and infrastructure services, said in September.
“However, and can have many issues associated with it, including environmental, can have additional costs, and its effectiveness in improving road safety can be limited.”
More may be read about the city’s pilot program here.
