Officials at the Cote-des-Neiges-NDG borough are coming up with more reasons as to why snow removal has been as slow as it has been this winter.
As of Thursday afternoon, the snow removal job which began last Sunday evening is 88 per cent complete, while two boroughs, Anjou and St. Leonard, are all done.
In Cote-des-Neiges-NDG, however, the job is only 70 per cent done, and while there is steady progress being made, the borough continues to lag behind all the others.
Last week, borough mayor Sue Montgomery told CJAD 800 that difficulties with transporting snow to two nearby snow dumps — at the Turcot Yards and near the Angrignon mall in LaSalle — was hampering snow removal efforts, as getting to either site often means having to deal with traffic tie-ups stemming from the ongoing Turcot Interchange rebuild.
She also suggested the breakdown of two snowblowers also slowed down last week's snow-removal efforts.
Now, Snowdon councillor Marvin Rotrand is suggesting the borough has been barred from using the Angrignon dump. He told CTV Montreal because of the heavy volume of snow, only trucks from the borough of LaSalle can dump snow there.
The other option is using a third city dump, in St. Michel, which is a half an hour away.
"Every minute that a truck's in transit means a minute that a truck's not picking up snow in our borough, so we're a bit behind," Rotrand says. "But there are solutions. The first thing the new administration has to loosen up. Let's get back to giving the boroughs the ability to react to snow problems in their own territory in ways that meet their needs."
Another local councillor, Projet Montreal's Peter Mcqueen, says snow removal in his borough is in the final year of a contract signed by former borough mayor Michael Applebaum, and that once that contract is up, the borough won't be able to negotiate its own new contracts.
"Snow clearing is also a service that Coderre had started centralizing, so the borough will no longer launch its own contracts, all will go through centre city with uniform service requirements," he said.
Meanwhile, the city is also suggesting motorists in the borough are the absolute worst when it comes to respecting the orange no-parking signs — which means more tow trucks and, again, delays in clearing snow.