City asks drivers for patience as London deals with province-wide shortage of road salt

Cleanup efforts from Sunday’s storm were made more difficult as the city is dealing with a salt shortage. Bryan Bicknell explains.

The city is asking Londoners to drive with extra caution, not just for now, but for the remainder of winter.

That’s because London, like other communities, is being impacted by a province-wide shortage of road salt.

But you don’t have to tell flat-bed tow truck operator Josh Borton how slippery the roads were on Monday. He saw it first-hand.

“The roads are a little bit crazy. I’ve been pretty busy for the last, oh I don’t know, six or seven hours, pulling people out of the ditch,” he explained.

The city says because of the shortage, operations crews are plowing major roads more frequently to reduce the need for salt. That means side-streets are taking longer to get to.

Crews are also using more sand with salt to reduce salt usage, said Division Manager Road Operations Joel Gillard.

“The conditions the last few days are probably not what people would expect after a storm because they’re used to that salt applications in little warmer temps. So, just give yourself a little buffer, a little more stopping distance,” said Gillard.

He says at any given time the city has up to 79 plow units and 58 sidewalk machines at work.

“They’re working around the clock, non-stop, and it’s been an extremely long winter, and they’re tired,” he explained.

When it comes to sidewalks, Gillard says they’re asking for patience.

“Nineteen-hundred lane kilometers of sidewalk throughout the city. So, it does take 24 to 48 hours after a long two-day snow system like we just had. So just exercise patience, let us get to work,” he said.