The snow clearing program for the paved trails along Hamilton Boulevard and in Hillcrest came forward to council — as did delegates who took issue with the proposal as it exists
City council heard from staff and delegates on the proposed snow and ice control paved paths pilot.
The pilot would instruct city maintenance to crews to start clearing the Hamilton and Hillcrest—Elijah Smith connector paved trails of snow as early as this month. The pilot was introduced in the city’s draft operations budget after repeated delegations from community members and the Whitehorse Urban Cycling Coalition.
Both trails would be designated as “priority one” trails — essentially treating them as part of a commuter network, according to Richard Graham, the manager of the city's fleet and transportation maintenance.
He told city councillors the proposal is to plow the Hamilton Boulevard trail to asphalt to expose the trail’s edges. Once uncovered, he said, crews will try to maintain a naturally hard-packed base using the equipment the city already has with subsequent plowing focused on clearing snow accumulation from the surface.
Maintaining the trail along Hamilton Boulevard does have its issues: the steep grades and curves of the trail, said Graham.
Earlier in the meeting, delegates from the Klondike Snowmobile Association and Whitehorse Urban Cycling Coalition had expressed concerns with the current plans of plowing the trail to asphalt this month.
Colin McCann of the Klondike Snowmobile Association told councillors the snowmobile association would be willing to continue maintaining the Hamilton Boulevard trail through to the spring. McCann asked council if they would consider waiting until the fall to begin the pilot, as the trail edges would be exposed from the start.
“I'm not in a position to question the safety of the operators at the city in the Bobcats,” said McCann to councillors. “If that's the only option, is to blast it down to pavement, then that's not something that we can support.”
McCann said if the city does expose the asphalt on the trail, snowmobiles won’t be able to use it for the rest of the winter.
In November, Forest Pearson of the Whitehorse Urban Cycling Coalition presented to council, asking them to maintain the trail in question. At the time, he said the KSA was unable to maintain the trail for daily commuter use due to not enough volunteer labour.
When speaking with the News over the phone on Feb. 4, Pearson said the capacity of the KSA hadn’t changed, but they were desperate to prevent the trail from being plowed clean.
“At this stage the trail is in good condition,” Pearson told the News. “They can start running plows on it. No problem. KSA runs plows on it. The city runs their Bobcats on it all the time.”
“So this proposal was in there to plow it down to asphalt, which is absolutely what we did not want and did not recommend,” said Pearson.
Colin McCann, from the KSA, spoke with the News over the phone on Feb. 6. He said "diet snow years" are already cutting snowmobiling seasons short, and that plowing the Hamilton Boulevard Trail to asphalt would cut this season short as well.
"The Hamilton Boulevard trail, what it means to us, is a longer season for the snowmobiles, going from Granger and Logan and Copper Ridge and Porter Creek, getting out to the out-and-away areas, which is what we also maintained." said McCann.
"There needs to be some sort of access, and this is the only access that we have at the moment."
He also clarified that the Hillcrest trail is not used by snowmobiles and it could be cleared "today," if need be.
Pearson and McCann’s concerns were brought up later in the meeting by councillors when speaking with city staff on the pilot.
Coun. Dan Boyd reiterated McCann’s suggestion that staff hold off until the beginning of next winter to start the pilot.
“That's nice of the snowmobile association to take it on for the rest of the season. They clearly are going to do that because they don't want the option that the city has put forward,” said Coun. Anne Middler, acknowledging that “this is the never-ending Hamilton Boulevard discussion.”
Manager Graham said the reason city crews would need to expose the asphalt surface now is because the edges of the trail aren’t defined with the entire snowpack left on the trail, he said.
In order to effectively be able to remove the snow, they need to expose the asphalt so they know where the trail is, said Graham.
“The suggestion of starting in the fall, I think, is a good one, in the sense that as long as Mother Nature cooperates with us, we will be able to let that first snow fall, provided it's not 30 centimetres, we will be able to let that first two or three centimetres of snow pack naturally. And then after that base is established, that's when we plow on the surface of that base” he said.
City manager Jeff O’Farrell recommended that council make an amendment to the proposed policy when it comes forward to council next week, to accurately reflect the adjusted pilot program start date for the Hamilton Boulevard trail.
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
