Mayor Olivia Chow is calling for an immediate full review of Toronto’s winter maintenance operations as well as the contracts with private companies in the wake of what she says was a “slow” response to back-to-back snowstorms earlier this month.
Toronto saw more than 50 centimetres of snow in the span of 10 days this February, seeing more of the white stuff in that time than what it saw all season last year.
The city officially started removing snow from main streets and sidewalks last Wednesday, saying their around-the-clock effort is set to last up to three weeks.
By 10 a.m. on Monday, crews said they cleared 362 kilometres worth of snow off roads, 288 kilometres of sidewalks, 44 kilometres of bridges, and 42 kilometres of bikeways.
After reviewing the snow removal efforts, however, Chow is unimpressed, calling for city crews to “do better.”
“Last week, I was repeatedly told that 100 per cent of the sidewalk had been plowed. I was told that this morning, I was told that last week, on Friday, well, I’m sorry, it is not true,” Chow told reporters on Tuesday morning.
“This is just unacceptable. We need to do more. We need to do better.”
The mayor pointed to seniors, those with mobility issues, and those pushing children in strollers who are struggling to move through the city’s sidewalks as a result, citing them as part of her reason for bringing forth concerns to the next executive committee and request the city manager to conduct a fulsome review of its winter maintenance operations.
Chow acknowledged the “painstaking work” that goes behind snow removal efforts in the wake of a major snowstorm, but provided recommendations and requests she feels will assist with future winter events.
On top of a full review of its winter maintenance operations, Chow is requesting that City Manager Paul Johnson “determine whether private winter maintenance contractors have upheld their obligations under their contract” as part of his review and also evaluate all options to improve winter maintenance work “including renegotiating or breaking existing contracts.”
Additionally, she is requesting an investigation into the gap between the city reports of fully cleared sidewalks and the reality of whether residents have seen a plow go down that walk, and an evaluation of how to make improvements.
“How did we get to the gap? Why is there a gap? And just how could anyone claim that is beyond me,” Chow said.
Chow wants review handling of winter storm
The mayor is also calling on the city’s general manager and auditor general to investigate the handling of the major winter storm earlier this month, and determine whether the city had actually incorporated the auditor general’s recommendations to address this storm.
In 2020, the auditor general found the city could have saved $24 million over five years in terms of contractor deals whom specified they would not receive standby payment on top of payment for the actual time spent on work, as well as an estimated $7.1 million in overpayments to contractors for unperformed work as required over the same period.
The following year, city council approved 11 contracts for one contractor to deliver winter maintenance, with 11 new contracts launching in November 2022, lasting for seven years.
In a 2022 briefing, the city said new operations will use GPS and performance metrics to keep contractors accountable, including using dash camera footage, an insurance rebate, and volume discounts.
A year later, Toronto’s auditor general revealed its findings of said contracts, finding the city had not actually made as much progress as it claimed, releasing its report at the same time a variance report revealed the city overspent on winter maintenance to the tune of $26.4 million the previous year.
The auditor general provided more than two dozen recommendations to city staff, and while the city said 18 of those 26 recommendations had been fully implemented as of May 2023, the auditor found only 10 had actually been enacted.
Management had said some of the delays related to equipment shortages brought on by the pandemic, saying the city anticipates its goals to be fully realized in time for the 2023-2024 winter season.
The auditor also investigated nearly $1.5 billion worth of winter maintenance contracts awarded by council in December 2021. Two companies, and their joint venture, scored 88 per cent of the 10-year contract value, prompting five other suppliers to file disputes.
Addressing the concerns of the city’s seven-year contract signed in 2021, Coun. Paul Ainslie told reporters on Tuesday he did his due diligence, conducting research by way of calling snow removal companies, because he “couldn’t understand how this was going to be achieved.”
“The thing that I heard loud and clear from everybody that I talked to is the contract that we were going to award at Toronto City Council was not going to work for our residents,” the general government committee chair said.
“There was going to be a raft of issues from not getting the snow cleared properly because we wouldn’t have the right-sized vehicles, if we had the proper vehicles at all.”
Ainslie continued by saying he is going to call staff charged with monitoring the contractors to ensure they complete their work, adding he is working for Torontonians in ensuring their tax dollars are being put to good use.
City officials, meanwhile, said clearing and removing the 50-plus centimetres of snow that fell over a 10-day period takes additional time and effort, especially since Toronto doesn’t see these kinds of weather events on a regular basis.
They say that since the removal effort began last Wednesday in excess of 114,000 tons of snow or more than 10,400 dump truck loads has already been hauled away.
“Crews have been working in shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week to plow the snow to the side of the road and sidewalk, and now we’re also removing these large piles left behind by plows,” Toronto’s Transportation Services Division General Manager Barbara Gray said during a press conference Tuesday.
“This is a tremendous amount of snow that’s been picked up over six days, amounting to an average of 1,700 loads a day, and more than 19,000 tons of snow removed each day.”
With this week’s warmer weather, Gray said crews would also be out inspecting catch basins to address local area flooding.
She thanked everyone for their hard work on this effort, adding that it would continue until “we finish what we started.”
Transportation Services says it also wants work done in timely way
“As the mayor and other councillors have indicated earlier today, there’s an expectation for this work to be done as soon as possible, and we couldn’t agree more,” Gray said.
“I’m aware of the request the mayor has made of the city manager and the Auditor General to, among other things, conduct a full review of the winter snow operations related to this most recent storm. We will most certainly work closely with [them] as they conduct their review, and we are committed to continuous improvement and have put significant focus on finding ways to further enhance our winter service delivery in the future.”
Gray also said internal crews and contractors have performance timelines in place and her department will be doing a “deep dive” into those expectations as well as a “full assessment” to see where they’re at with those service targets.
“I’m sure the auditor will as well, to demonstrate if the contractors are delivering on their service levels, and if there’s anything that needs to change,” she said.
“The best thing we can do is continue to get at it, continue to communicate and always be willing to take a look at our operations and make sure that it’s the best it can be, because I think the people of Toronto deserve an excellent service.
“We are delivering a service based on the service standards that’s in our contracts and that we have within our own internal procedures that the council has approved or service levels, and so we will continue to do our best to meet those and also identify where we think there’s room for improvement.”
Gray said the auditor previously took a look at whether it makes sense for the city run its winter program internally and in the end it was determined that the best option was to contract out some of this work.
“Value for money is a critical piece,” says Transportation Services GM
“I do think that value for money is a critical piece, and one that we are very focused on, and one that we will continue to assess through these next bit of reviews that the mayor has called for,” she said.
Vincent Sferrazza, Toronto’s Director of Transportation noted that the city undertook a multiple procurement process and went out twice to receive bids for various zones that we were in need of a snow clearing contractor.
“Following that, we followed all of the city’s purchasing bylaws and policies on how to appropriately, correctly and legally award a contract for each zone. So we did, in fact, satisfy all of the purchasing bylaws, policies, all the corporate policies that is involved on awarding a contract as per, as per purchasing by laws,” he said.
“So I’m satisfied that, in fact, we did, in fact, be sure that we ran a very fair and diligent process.”
Sferrazza, said he, too, wants the snow cleared and removed as soon as possible, adding that everyone will be “glad when this process is finished.”
He said snow removal is well underway across the city and reminded drivers to not park on roads where there are temporary orange snow removal signs.
Sferrazza also said that crews are out doing additional plowing in areas where windrows may have collapsed or have been displaced in some way, especially on sidewalks.
Chow said she would bring forward the snow clearing efforts to the next executive committee meeting, scheduled for March 19.
With files from CP24’s Joshua Freeman
