Last year, Time municipality in Rogaland county decided to improve its snow- and ice-clearing operations in order to make areas more accessible to everyone. Now it has evaluated last winter’s efforts.

The snow-clearing crews in Time also report that both businesses and shoppers in the town centre are very positive to the new efforts to get rid of snow and ice. The better cleared routes are used by everyone, not only people with disabilities.

Snow, ice and frozen ground

Rogaland county had a long cold period in the winter of 2008-2009, with little snowfall and a thick layer of frozen ground. When the weather changed and the rain came, the frozen ground led to a film of black ice forming above the asphalt.

In the winter of 2009-2010, a lot of snow fell in a short space of time. This ended up as a 6-8 cm thick layer of ice that the snow-clearing crews could not remove. It lay from before Christmas until the end of March.

Wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs, the elderly and others who for various reasons were not good at walking rarely left the house. Many people also could not make necessary visits to pharmacies, doctor’s surgeries, the Labour and Welfare Service (NAV) office or shops without the help of others.

This winter

This was the reason for Time municipality’s Road and Traffic Department starting to collaborate with the municipality’s Users’ and Senior Citizens’ Council in the winter of 2010-2011 with the aim of creating a route in the centre of Bryne that would cover all the most important functions in the town. This route was also assessed with regard to gradient and other factors that affect accessibility for various user groups.

The route was called “Clearing Route no. 9” and was to be given first priority last winter.

In the town centre, it was to be easy to find parking spaces connected to this Route no. 9. In this way, easy accessibility was to be ensured “from start to finish”.

Before this winter, it had been decided that, as soon as possible after a snowfall, combination of rain and frost/frozen ground or other circumstances that lead to reduced accessibility, the route was to be cleared and/or sanded/salted in such a way that black asphalt and more or less summer road conditions were achieved.

Clearing Route no. 9” is marked with a red line on the areal photograph. Click on the illustration to increase the size.

The whole municipality

Ideally, Time municipality says that the whole municipality should have its roads kept clear of snow and ice according to this standard. However, the focus on “Route no. 9” is an acknowledgement of the fact that this is impossible with the resources that are available. The focus was therefore placed on a smaller geographical area in such a way that as many as possible of the inhabitants benefited as much as possible from the funds spent.

Now the municipalities have gained a lot of good and some not so good experience from these efforts last winter. However, a lot of positive feedback indicates that the Rogaland municipality is on the right road with its use of universal design to prevent snowy and icy roads.