Guelph Transit buses were put back on city streets at noon today (Jan. 27) after being pulled from their morning routes due to bad road conditions.
All city buses were taken out of service at 8:50 a.m. because of the severe road and weather conditions, the city announced on its website.
A more detailed transit staff memo, posted on Coun. Ian Findlay’s Ward 2 blog, said some intersections with inclines and declines had become impassable, and this had a ripple effect throughout the bus system.
A memo from the city’s public works department, also posted on the Ward 2 blog, said the city’s winter control workers had been out “in full force” for the previous 24 hours.
At 3 p.m. Thursday, the memo said, all main and secondary routes had received salt in anticipation of freezing rain. “This work continued past midnight, at which point additional staff were called in to assist,” it said. “At 2 a.m., work was suspended on ‘gritting’ the local (residential) streets and direction was given to go back to the main and secondary routes.
“Roads were wet up to approximately 7:30 a.m., where snow started to fall and accumulate,” the memo said. At that point, it said, direction was given to bring all the vehicles into the public works yard to put blades on, so plows could operate with their blades down to remove the snow accumulation while still putting down grit material.