Which city services are sacrificed when winter gets to be too much?

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – This unique winter in Metro Vancouver has had all sorts of impacts on us over the last month.

From driving to our day to day routines, the cold affects us all — even financially.

“We’re within budget, but as I say, we’ve got a few months to go yet,” says Doug Strachan from the Surrey School District.

He says even though they’ve set aside a portion of their annual budget for snow removal, they still have to pick their spots.

Many of the 125 school properties in Surrey haven’t been fully cleared, and while the thought of investing more in snow removal is a logical one, it comes at a price.

“We’re very reluctant to take that out of the classroom and spend that on snow removal equipment when we won’t need — as we’ve seen in the last five years — for the most part.”

The Surrey Parks department says they’ve taken to clearing only the high-density parks because they simply don’t have the resources to tackle all 600 parks.

The city boasts the most artificial fields in BC but according to Richard Ryan from Surrey Parks, it’s proven to be a burden this winter.

“Because of the snow, those fields are obviously unusable. I think we’re probably losing about $80,000 a month in revenue because those fields are sitting idle and not being able to be used by the public,” explains Ryan.

He says it isn’t realistic to clean the ice and snow from the few hundred parks, which is why they’ve taken to focusing on the busiest ones.

“We’re not clearing all the pathways through parks or we’re not necessarily clearing all sidewalks around parks either. We simply don’t have the resources.”

Ryan adds that they haven’t been aware of any damage to any of their facilities during this chilly winter.

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