Michael from Streets Maintenance
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This podcast is recorded in treaty one territory, the home and traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew, and Dakota peoples and the National homeland of the Red River Metis. We acknowledge that our drinking water comes from Shoal Lake, 1st Nation in Treaty Three Territory.
Speaker 1 0:31
Hi, I'm Natalie
Speaker 2
and I'm Shannay.
Speaker 1
Okay, bear with me. I have a bit of an analogy for us today. If pathways and sidewalks and roads are like, you know, the veins of a city, then there's a critical role for someone to maintain circulation.
Speaker 2
Okay, so in more direct terms, you're talking about someone in charge of keeping us all moving?
Speaker 1
Right. That's Michael Cantor, Manager of Streets Maintenance, joining us to talk about removing what gets in our way.
Speaker 2
We're talking winter storms and potholes.
Speaker 1 1:03
So thanks for joining us, Michael. And in stereotypical Winnipeg fashion, we're going to start this interview talking about the weather as we're recording right now. You know it's starting to kind of cool down. We've got some sun, but we know the snow is coming. For those listening, can you share the first time you ever saw snow.
Speaker 3 1:23
Okay, so usually, I think that people probably will be much earlier than myself seeing snow. But as odd as they can sound, I saw snow for the first time, or actually touch snow for the first time in my mid 20s, when I went to a ski trip. I come from a country that is relatively warm, so snow is not a daily occurrence or a yearly occurrence. So yeah, that was my first encounter in snow in my mid 20s.
Shannay MacKinnon 1:53
And what was your first impression of your first winter here in Winnipeg?
Speaker 3 2:00
Well, I was welcomed by winter when I when we arrived, when we landed in at the airport, and the sleeve was not operational at the airport. We had to run from the plane to the to the airport itself. And we that was interesting. We were snowed on. We were dressed short sleeves and shorts, and we were running, and it was actually really funny for me. It was a very appropriate welcome from Winnipeg to a newcomer.
Speaker 1 2:31
Now, the reason we wanted to start there is because snow now makes a pretty dynamic and sometimes really dominant part of your work, you are the manager of street maintenance here at the city, you know, in a city sometimes known as winter peg. Can you tell us more about that particular role?
Speaker 3 2:51
Yeah. So, like any management position, I direct a lead and guide our staff that provide few major services in the city. Year round. In the summer, we maintain roads and sidewalks and pathways and back lanes. In the winter, we obviously snow, clear snow and control ice, and we do also beautification, which is spring cleanup and sweeping through the summer litter control. So overall, we are in a cyclical type of work and my division looks after all these three major services.
Speaker 2 3:29
Nice. And this isn't your first role with the City of Winnipeg. Can you tell us a little bit about your history?
Speaker 3 3:35
Yes, I came to the city in 2010 started as the Traffic Signals Engineer. I manage that branch for about eight years, and I was fortunate enough to be part of the Transportation Management Center project that we delivered in 2016
Speaker 1 3:55
Now, quick little fact, folks, you know that gigantic traffic light every year in the Santa Claus parade, Michael had a hand in that.
Speaker 3 4:03
Yes, we, at some point, the group at traffic signals, we wanted to participate in a Santa Claus parade, and we thought about what kind of float we can create. So we decided to build a gigantic traffic signal with over 100 LED lights, and it was very bright and very interesting. And I think folks were very happy to see it. We actually approach Guinness World Records submitted that, but we were not approved, because it's not an operational actual traffic signal. So, but we tried, and it was interesting.
Speaker 2 4:39
So a lot of Winnipeggers wear their winter experience as kind of like a badge of honor, but I think you provide a great example of someone who has learned not to just live with winter, but work through it. So let's nerd out a little bit with snow here. For most of us, we might know that there's a snowfall warning maybe coming one or two days ahead of the event. Where does a major snowfall clearing operations start for you. Can you take us to the moment you'll make the call and how it unfolds from there?
Speaker 3 5:07
So every snow event starts with the really monitoring. Close the weather forecast. We monitor a few weather systems, weather forecast system, just to be on a safe side and be sure that we will be dealing with what we what is actually coming. We prepare for that. We have usually operational meetings to decide what will be the plan of attack for that specific event, as every event is really different, and we look into that, make some decisions, and then communicate them to multiple groups in the city for communication, parking authority, our IT folks, our yards, different partners that we have doing the work with us, and our fleet management. So we look into that, communicate it, and then during the event, we look at the forecast again, see what we got, and we made some other plans to see what will be the end game for that specific event, and continue communicating with everybody that needs to know, mainly with the public about what are the plans and what's being done.
Speaker 1 6:09
And okay, so you mentioned this, not all snowstorms are built equal. Are they? What kind of conditions hit, and you and your team are telling your families, we're not going to make it home for dinner tonight.
Speaker 3 6:23
Well, fortunately, we have good technology, communication technology today that we don't really have to miss dinner. We communicate remotely. We use various tools like Microsoft teams to do that, and we can make it for dinner. But overall, every event is really different. It depends on many factors, from accumulations, the temperatures, the winds and duration of the event. So every event is different. It makes you more focused on and on what you need to do, and it keeps you humble regarding how do you approach every snow event? So yeah, although we are a 24/7 operation during the winter, we have some tools in place to make sure that we are able to make it for dinner.
Speaker 1 7:14
But if you had to answer, what is your least favorite kind of storm that hits that is really the hair pull out.
Speaker 3 7:20
I think the tricky ones are mostly the ice events, not really the snow. Snow is relatively simple. It comes down, you clear it. The Ice events, the ones that you're not too sure how your roads are going to act, or how your bridges are going to act, and whether the ice is going to form or not, these are the ones that can sneak to into the picture, and you need to make sure that you have some, some ready to go trucks and spreaders to spread salt if needed, or sand, depends on the case. But really, to monitor closely the forecast and make some decisions to ensure that our roads are kept safe.
Speaker 2 8:06
So we have some municipal lingo to clear up. Snow clearing happens on a priority system. So for anyone who's ever wondered, can you clarify the priority definitions for us and what they mean?
Speaker 3 8:17
So I know that everybody has this their priority, and the street and the back lane and the sidewalk is a priority. However, if everything is a priority, there's no priority. And to be able to clear so many kilometers of sidewalks and streets, we have a priority system. So generally, every street, sidewalk and pathway, are getting a priority based on their location and based on how much traffic they are carrying. And we have three priorities. Our priority ones are regional streets. These are the high speeds, the one the downtown area, the ones that carry most of the traffic. Then we have priority two, which is our collectors and bus routes. These are the roads that often connect between the regional streets and the residential streets. And then we have, obviously priority three, which is our residential streets, and for the most part, the sidewalks and pathways adjacent to those streets will have the same priority level.
Speaker 1 9:11
I have another one, the difference between using salt and sand. What are those for?
Speaker 3 9:16
Salt is used to melt snow and ice. We use it either before an event or after the event, to reach our bear pavement policy and to make sure that our bridges are not iced and to keep our streets, the regional streets, mainly safe and we all we sometimes use that on our priority two streets when we have extreme events like Freezing rain, sand is being is used to improve traction, and for vehicles the stopping ability, and we use that on sidewalks and streets just to keep them safe to travel on.
Speaker 2 9:50
So you're trying to get ahead of these things, especially ice with the use of salt. What happens when freezing rain happens? And you're not expecting it. And it's those bridge events where cars are starting to pile up and start to go backwards, are you guys kind of there as an emergency response, like what happens in those situations? I always wonder, as a driver, if I was caught in a situation like that, on a bridge during an icy situation, are you guys there to help and put down the salts?
Speaker 3 10:21
Well, we are 27 24/7 operation, so we're always there, and we always have trucks that can go out and spread salt, but we try to avoid those situations. That's why we monitor closely our weather systems and some devices that we have on the bridges as well, to make sure that we're not getting into that situation and we're ahead of it, and we are either putting a solution on those on those bridges, or salt to ensure that we don't get ice formed. So the whole idea here is to prevent that from happening. Because if it's happening and it sneaks up on you, and you don't know that, and you're chasing, chasing that situation, and you are having some bridges and not the greatest state, so you want to be ahead of it, find it and address it before it happens.
Speaker 1 11:13
Makes sense. So going into this winter season, there's an update to the way we're clearing sidewalks, which means good news for people living on priority three streets, they're going to see the plows out a lot quicker.
Speaker 3 11:25
The main change is for our residential sidewalks. Last year, we received 15 additional walk machines that are primarily were added to for us to be able to meet timelines on our priority one and priority two streets. But we obviously knew that once we're going to have those machines, our timelines on priority three streets will be better as well. So we measured it this year, and last year, council changed the policy so that we are trigger point to plow residential streets is the same as priority ones and twos, which means that every time they're triggered, all the sidewalks will be cleared. But once we the priority three sidewalks are cleared, once the priority ones and twos are done, and this year, we measured the timeline as well with all these machines, and we figured that we're able to do those the priority three streets within 36 hours versus five days. That wasn't a policy. So we made that change a recommendation, and that was changed as well. So this means, this means that priority ones and two sidewalks will be plowed within 36 hours, ones are complete. We move to priority three that will be plowed as well within 36 hours from the moment we started.
Speaker 1 12:44
Now, one of the things that you know, as we work to make snow clearing better in the city, you're, you're, you're always kind of looking at new technologies, new operations, and I understand you're continuing to work towards some live mapping features.
Speaker 3 13:01
Correct. We are a working on leveraging the automatic vehicle location systems that are currently being rolled or implemented in our vehicles. We're able to develop some functionality to to determine whether a sidewalk was cleared or not, and we currently just looking at that data. We will be comparing it this winter with our current reporting, manual reporting system that we have for years now. And once we have confidence in the data coming from the automatic vehicle location, we would like to use it as a work management feature to know where we at, what our status of the clearing and reporting percentage complete to the residents, and we hope one day that we can get to the point that this data could be shared with the public.
Speaker 2 14:01
Amazing. So currently, what's the best way for Winnipeggers to keep up to date on snow clearing operations?
Speaker 3 14:07
Well for operational updates, maps, policies, progress, our snow website is a great point of of information. It's winnipeg.ca. Forward slash snow, but obviously for parking bans, it's the best to actually download our know your zone app. Put your addresses that are important to you, you'll get notifications when we are plowing and when the ban is in place, just to avoid a ticket and to help us plowing your streets better.
Speaker 1 14:40
Now at the beginning of this conversation, you already shared your first standout with a big snowstorm, and that was at your arrival since, though, since you've been in this particular position, are there any storms that have stood out to you?
Speaker 3 14:55
Yeah, the snow in 2021, 2022 That was a very interesting winter season. We got over 200 centimeters of snow, and we were busy the whole season. It was truly a 24/7 plowing season. It was hard on everyone. We're very busy. We had many events back to back events. We were not able even to reach our priority three sidewalks, since we were not able to finish our priority ones and twos for so many events. So that was a very busy snowstorm.
Speaker 1 15:30
I remember that one, you know, it was October, cold and it was snowy. Usually it's one of the other, right?
Speaker 3 15:36
cold, it was snow. We plowed our residential streets four times. It was a very busy season, but the other one was, as we call it, the storm that never happened is the one that we were promised to get about 50 centimeters. I can't remember the year, and we were all ready for that, but we were as much as we were excited. We were also happy to see downgrading to 10 to 15, and we dealt with it as a normal snow event.
Speaker 1 16:05
We'll be right back
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Avoid a ticket in tow this winter season. Download the Know Your zone app and enter the addresses that affect you. Allow notifications so you will be reminded when parking bans are in effect. For more information about the app and snow clearing operations. Visit winnipeg.ca/snow.
Speaker 2 16:25
And we're back with Michael Cantor, okay, let's switch gears. I've heard you say, in winter you're reacting, and in summer, you're chasing. So what are you chasing in the summer, right?
Speaker 3 16:35
Well, we are chasing potholes. We're chasing potholes in the summer, in early spring, especially this, this last spring, we had a very large amount of potholes this year, and there are a few reasons for that. One is that during the winter, we had about two separate weeks of a spring like weather, where we had lots of potholes popping out, we where we had to repair only with a cold mix, which is a temporary, really temporary repair. And then when we got to spring, we had to deal with those, but we had many other potholes popping as well. And we have we had a very rainy May and June, which really didn't help us patching those holes very effectively, the rain brought more potholes, and actually didn't, did not let us repair some of the potholes. Effectively, we had to go back to some potholes multiple time. So that was a very challenging spring, but since then, we are chasing again to cover all the other potholes as much as we can until snow flies, and we're doing it right now. Our goal is to make sure that we don't have any hazardous potholes on our network, but also to try and finish all the potholes that we have on priority ones and priority twos, so that what we're doing at this point.
Speaker 1 17:59
Now, year over year. Numbers here count knowing how many potholes we have each year, I have wondered you're not actually counting each pothole, are you?
Speaker 3 18:09
Every pothole is different in size and depth, and it's not really efficient to count them as they are different. So we standardize on a certain size of pothole, which is about 25 kilograms of material that been filled put in that pothole, that's our standard. We're counting it by the weight of the material we put into that average pothole. So that's how we that's how we monitoring that. And that gives us the ability to know the accomplishments and to know how much we have done and how much are outstanding.
Speaker 2 18:43
Do you have any personal experiences with these potholes?
Speaker 3 18:47
I feel the pain the same way so and I'm also a driver, and everything that we do, which is what I think nice about the job that I'm doing, is that anything that I do, I'm being affected by it as well, for good and for bad. So that makes it actually interesting position.
Speaker 1 19:08
To be in, you know, like you said, so it's a personal job, and you're chasing these potholes, but again, you're chasing solutions too. When it comes to potholes, you've been looking at AI and some alternative film materials too. Correct?
Speaker 3 19:25
Well, we're always looking for ways to improve what we do. Potholes is a big thing. We're trying to make it as most effectively and efficiently that we can. One of the areas, obviously, is the film material. We don't have access to hot asphalt during the winter or early spring or late fall, for that matter. So we use what we call cold mix, but we all we always testing new materials to see what would last longer than a cold mix, or maybe even a more challenging situation, like rain. So we're looking for that. We're testing it. It's early to determine which one is an effective one, but we always looking for new materials. The other thing is, in our work management, we are looking into we are testing an AI based device that will give us a fast detection of those puddles, not relying only on three, on one calls, but actually detecting it as you drive through the streets. And we would like to use it not only for work management, we would like to use it for prioritization, because it can give us the size and the depth, which can flag hazardous potholes, which we can address faster if we know it before anybody calls.
Speaker 1 20:42
And this is putting these AI cameras on existing city vehicles moving through the city.
Speaker 3 20:47
Correct. We have inspectors are traveling our regional streets that were testing those for the past two years, and we're trying to figure out how to work with that data. And we are looking into expanding it as well to all our streets.
Speaker 2 21:00
Your group really keeps Winnipeg moving. And I think for most Winnipeggers, that's a really good thing, but I can think of a group of Winnipeggers that would consider that a bad thing, and I think that's Winnipeg school children, because you are ruining some perfectly good snow days by keeping these roads clear. What do you have to say for yourself?
Speaker 3 21:19
Well, I'm not the only one dealing with snow. Many individuals and groups which take part in this major operation, first of all, my management team, which is supporting me and makes my life much easier. In this role, we have the Public Works employees from Labor's operators, inspectors, Foreman and our supporting services, it HR and finance there are, they're very important. And this whole machine as well. We have city partners like parks division, parking authority, Fleet Management Agency, corporate communications and 311, and we have also private partners with which take very big part in clearing the snow from our contractors, our hourly hard equipment and material suppliers. So really, every one of them plays a part, and I this is a good opportunity to thank them for their commitment and dedication. It's a big service. It seems like in the winter there's sometimes seems like there's only snow to deal with, but it's not true, but it's a big part of Winnipeg during the winter, and I again, want to echo my thank to these groups and individuals.
Speaker 1 22:31
One thing we love to do talk about, you know, myths out there, or things that, if you have the opportunity for people to know, you sure would like to let them know right here. I've seen it happen on my street. I wonder how often you come across it that someone has taken it upon themselves to fill a pothole. And is that? Is that helping you out, or is there anything unforeseen in that scenario?
Speaker 3 22:56
First of all, it's illegal to do that, as anybody that's supposed to work on the street needs to be approved and approved contractor and authorized to do that. But beyond the legality, it could be very unsafe to do work that you either not trained to do and not able to do, potentially doesn't have the tools, especially when you work in traffic and on the street, I would strongly recommend against it. We'll be happy to fill the pothole if it's been reported or we're detected. So leave it to us. We do our best what we have to fill those potholes and repair those streets, and so please trust us to do that, and please report it and keep safe.
Speaker 1 23:40
What are these people using to fill the potholes?
Speaker 3
Good point.
Speaker 1 23:44
Michael, thanks so much for joining us today. Last question we ask it to everyone, is there something you could share with us about Winnipeg that you wish everyone knew?
Speaker 2 23:56
Well, I think that most people know that. But from my experience as a newcomer, I have to say that Winnipeg is really friendly place to come in and being welcomed by so I always appreciated the country that receiving accepting me as a newcomer. And I have to say that in all my troubles, I find that coming back to Winnipeg is a very good experience.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
Speaker 1 24:30
Coming up on the next podcast, we talk to Derek Resch, the supervisor of Public Service Operations.
Speaker 2
Some of us know him as Mr. Christmas around here.
Speaker 1
He's a busy guy. This month, we have the lighting of the Christmas tree. All the lights go up downtown, and we're going to take a behind the scenes look on how it all happens. and before we go, we'd love to hear from our listeners. What programs and services impact you most. Email us at City-podcast@winnipeg.ca with suggestions for future episodes. Thanks for listening.
