Ontario probes whether salters, plows late clearing GTA roads

Ontario’s transportation minister says companies contracted to clear and salt the province’s highways could be fined if it’s found they were late doing their job during Wednesday’s snowfall in the GTA.

Steven Del Duca said he’s asked his staff to determine why conditions were so slippery on the QEW and other 400-series highways and expects a report back shortly.

“I will say very clearly that if the report comes back to me that demonstrates that our contractor partners did not fulfill their obligations, there will be consequences,” he said at Queen’s Park on Thursday.

“Never happy at all to learn that our roads are not in the safest possible conditions.”

According to provincial standards, salting must begin within 30 minutes of the start of a storm and plowing, when there are two centimetres of snow on the ground. Once the storm ends, pavement on major highways must be bare within eight hours.

 

Fines are $5,000 per vehicle and $1,000 for each 15 or 30 minutes the problem persists, depending on the offence.

Last year, Ontario fined its maintenance contractors $3.2 million.

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