Most Richmond roads have been cleared across the city after the first widespread snowfall in the Lower Mainland last weekend.
However, residents have noted bike lanes and sidewalks throughout the city have yet to be cleared.
Bonnie Leung told the Richmond News in a letter to the editor that bike lanes were still covered on Tuesday, two days after the snow dump, "forcing cyclists to bike on busy streets" with cars.
"Look at Garden City bike lane, you can't even see it," said Leung.
"This snowfall isn't a surprise incident. We all knew snow was coming. The city workers should have put out salt and should be out clearing bike paths."
Meanwhile, the News saw the sidewalk on westbound Alderbridge Way, from Fisher Drive to No. 4 Road, still covered in snow and ice as of Friday morning.
More snow is in the forecast intermittently into this weekend and next week.
The City of Richmond has allocated about $1.4 million for its snow and ice budget this year, according to city spokesperson Clay Adams.
A November city staff report stated the city's snow removal plan includes 43 pieces of snow response equipment, 3,000 metric tonnes of bulk road salt with on-site storage of 1,450 metric tonnes at the city works yard.
This is in addition to 145,700 litres of salt brine - up from its storage capacity of 115,000 litres in 2023.
Richmond's preferred anti-icing treatment is salt brine to limit and delay snow or ice from bonding to pavement surfaces in temperatures as low as -15C, according to the city staff report.
Last year, Richmond implemented GPS technology that monitors salt (brine) usage so that output levels can be adjusted, as well as 11 new road sensors to serve as "mini weather stations" to record accurate real-time temperature information.
In late 2022, the city and Metro Vancouver saw a double snowstorm that disabled drivers on roads and had them stranded for hours with bottlenecks at the George Massey Tunnel and the Alex Fraser Bridge.
This pushed the city's almost $1.4 million budget for snow removal to $2.2 million.
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