Ice Control - The City of Red Deer

Our equipment will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure safe driving conditions.

Q. How can I obtain a copy of the Snow & Ice Control policy?
A. See the City's Snow & Ice Control council policy and the Snow & Ice Control department policy.

Q. How often and where does the City sand roadways?

A. Sanding is an ongoing operation that depends on weather conditions and safety concerns. Typically Priority One and Priority Two locations are sanded first after frost, freezing rain, or snow is deposited. The crews will then work on sanding trouble spots on Priority Three, Four and Five roadways. See the City's Snow & Ice Street Control Map.pdf.

Q. What criteria does the City use to classify roads on a priority scale?
A. The priority is set based on the roadway design, traffic volumes, traffic speed and, in the case of some Priority One locations, the steepness of road grade and susceptibility to icing.

Q. How does the City determine the high collision intersections?
A. Collision reports received from the RCMP are categorized and those collisions where the road condition was reported to be snow/ice/slush are ranked. Three years of data are used, this year's high collision intersections are based on 2006-2008 data.

Q. Where do I report unsafe road conditions?
A. Please report unsafe road conditions to the Public Works Department by calling 403-342-8238.

Products Used
In the event of a snowfall, freezing rain, or frost event, a sand/salt mixture is generally applied. Crews adjust materials depending on the prevailing temperature and weather conditions.

The City uses salt brine to pre-wet the dry sand/salt mixture. Salt brine is manufactured in-house and is a water and salt mixture (23% salt concentration).

Anti-icing is a proactive approach to fighting snow and ice and consists of applying a liquid de-icer only to streets prior to or at the beginning of a storm to prevent snow & ice from bonding to the road surface.

In 2007, the City began anti-icing with salt brine on hills and other high hazard locations using a one-ton truck with a 500 gallon tank and spray bar. An additional truck was added to the fleet in 2008. Anti-icing is currently in the trial stage.