Calgary roads boss defends residential snow removal

The city says road crews have removed 132,000 tons of snow from residential areas in the past week.

Ryan Jestin, the head of Calgary's roads department, says the city has mobilized more than 200 pieces of snow-clearing equipment for the current effort.

He says crews are concentrating on school zones and in some cases are trucking snow out of communities where there is no room to plow.

Nonetheless, he is warning that it will take several more weeks to complete the job.

"I'm still saying it will take us another three weeks of effort before we're completely finished," said Jestin."And when I say finished I mean we're going to be back to normal winter conditions."

Jestin is also asking Calgarians to help the city crews who are assessing residential streets by calling 311 and reporting the state of snow removal.

But he is asking people to be polite.

"It gives us another set of eyes," said Jestin. "It's absolutely critical but it sure doesn't help when people are not kind to operators."

The city has already received 15,000 calls to 311 about snow removal.