Six snow plow trucks with sanders and 12 grader plows keep traffic moving in Cypress County.

Trucks are only used on hard surface roads, mainly consisting of hills, arterial and collector roads, such as Eagle Butte Road and Township Road 120.  Once these priority roads are cleared and sanded, the trucks will enter country residential subdivisions and lastly the hamlets. Hamlet roads will only be plowed if there is somewhere to push the snow, such as a ditch.

 

Note: Volker Stevin are contracted by Alberta Transportation to maintain HWY 1, HWY 41, and the the Elkwater townsite. To contact them please call 1-888-VSROADS (1-888-877-6237).

Graders are the machine of choice for gravel roads.  Based on Policy R 20, the County practice is to wait until there is an accumulation of 4" (10 cm) of snow before plowing as any less may result in too much gravel being removed from the ridges that naturally form from the traffic.  The first priority for the graders is school bus routes. Then feeder roads are done, such as the Bull Trail south of Irvine.  The last roads to be done are those leading up to individual farm residence driveways.  After a general snow storm, it will take about three days before all roads have been plowed.  In the interest of operator and public safety, equipment typically only operates during daylight hours.