Snow falls across city, campus
First major snowfall brings traffic, transit delays, Christmas spirit to city
On the morning of Nov 19, Regina residents woke to find themselves completely surrounded by piles of snow. According to a report by Global News, the city had received nearly 15 centimeters of snow “overnight Monday and through to Wednesday morning.”
Keegan Oliver-Gress, a philosophy student, explained to the Carillon that when the weather is like this, “It’s hard not to take a moment to look up and appreciate the beauty of the snow slowly falling,” but that “the weather can also be unforgiving.” Oliver-Gress says he has reliable transportation with winter tires and that he’s “grateful for the workers who have been working tirelessly to clear the roads. Oliver-Gress added that the snowfall filled him “with the Christmas spirit [and] vibes.”
Oliver-Gress isn’t wrong when he says that the weather can be “unforgiving.” The first major snowfall of the season typically brings difficulties with transport, snow removal, and a drastic increase in weather-related motor-vehicle accidents.
A Nov 19 news release by the Saskatchewan RCMP explained that they had received a total of 14 reports of collisions between the hours of 12 a.m. and 8 a.m.. Another news release made by police on Nov 20 claimed that “between 7 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Nov 19…[they] received 44 reports of motor vehicle collisions and incidents throughout the province. The most common of these incidents were vehicles in the ditch and jackknifed semis.” The news release also claimed that no injuries were reported as of the afternoon of Nov 20.
As of Nov 21, the Regina Police Service (RPS) has not released similar statistics regarding accidents or injuries related to motor-vehicle collisions in the city. A post by the RPS on X (formerly Twitter) the morning of Nov 20 stated that “multiple vehicles [were] stuck around the city” and urged people to avoid driving unless necessary.
A heavy snowfall like the one that Regina experienced last week doesn’t only impact divers – people who typically take the bus or walk are impacted as well.
Beginning in the early morning hours of Nov 19 and continuing throughout the day, Regina Transit announced several transit delays. By 5 p.m. on Nov 20, Regina Transit had announced that, as a result of severe weather conditions, all buses were “severely delayed,” and urged riders to check TransitLive to find more precise bus locations. Some Regina Transit users claimed, in response to Regina Transit Facebook posts announcing delays, that some bus locations were not available and others shown on TransitLive may have been inaccurate.
Emily Robertson, a philosophy student in her third year, told the Carillon that the first thought she had when she saw the snow was: “I don’t want to have to walk to the bus stop today.” Robertson did still make the ten-minute trek to her bus stop on Tuesday morning, though. She explained the walk was “kind of awful,” but “it was really pretty [outside]… all the trees were covered in snow.”
For pedestrians, mobility depends largely on individual property owners’ compliance with Regina’s Clean Property Bylaw, which requires property owners to clear sidewalks “within 48 hours following a snow event.” The bylaw also requires that sidewalks “be kept free from snow and ice buildup.” At present, it is not clear how consistently this bylaw is enforced, but Robertson said that, by Thursday Nov 21, her walk to the bus stop had been cleared.
Patrick J. Coleman, an urban planner, explained in an article on pedestrian mobility in wintertime that, culturally, barriers to pedestrians exist in Canada. These barriers are made worse in wintertime when, “in the auto-oriented culture of Canada and the United States, many northern cities have ignored the pedestrian…with most [of their] attention and resources [being] devoted to keeping streets and highways clear of snow and ice for the automobile” rather than those traveling by foot.
Sometimes, even this longstanding devotion to clearing streets and highways isn’t enough to prevent drivers from finding themselves in a pinch. After the snowfall, Oliver-Gress helped a fellow driver who found themselves stuck in the snow near the entrance to a University of Regina parking lot. “Luckily, as I was pushing, someone else came to help. We eventually got them unstuck and it was a nice little victory, but then the driver just drove off!”
Oliver-Gress said that ultimately, he was happy to be “able to help them out.” “Shoutout to the dude that helped me push, I never got his name,” Oliver-Gress concluded.
