WINNIPEG - JANUARY 07, 2005 - Tonight will be the last night for the Residential Overnight Parking Ban as plowing crews are nearing completion of snow clearing operations on residential streets. The ban, which will be lifted at 06:01 a.m. tomorrow, prohibits parking between midnight and 06:00 a.m. on all streets not designated as snow routes.

Residents may resume parking on streets that have been plowed, with the exception of streets where temporary “No Parking” signs have been placed in order to address plowing deficiencies

Motorists are reminded the Snow Route Overnight Parking Ban, prohibiting parking between 02:00 a.m. and 06:00 a.m. on all Snow Routes, remains in effect until March 1, 2005.

Plowing of sidewalks continues with 95% of Priority I , 40 % of Priority II and a few Priority III walks cleared. “Walk plowing will continue well into next week, as sidewalk blowers are experiencing heavy going,” says Bruce McPhail, manager of streets maintenance.

Snow hauling crews will be at work for several weeks, removing snow banks from major routes in an effort to reclaim narrowed curb lanes, and make room for storage of snow from subsequent snowfalls.

Crews have also begun to remove high piles from intersections with areas around schools being a priority. Crews have also been dedicated to opening up fire hydrants buried by deep snow.

Effective 06:00 p.m. tonight the Kenaston Snow Dump, one of five public snow dumps will be closed for approximately one week. McPhail says the Kenaston site is a very popular dump and the extremely heavy volumes arriving there have temporarily overwhelmed the capacity of the bulldozers that maintain the site. Once the dozers have pushed up existing snow the dump will be re-opened.