Dead deer likely to blame for commuter chaos
Posted Jun 13, 2017 12:44 pm.
Last Updated Jun 13, 2017 12:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If you were stuck on Glenmore Trail Tuesday morning, it’s because someone struck a deer.
The animal was hit around 7 a.m. and blocked one eastbound lane at 14 Street S.W. by the causeway, causing massive backups all the way to Sarcee Trail/Highway 8.
The deer was not removed from the busy road until nearly three hours later.
The 660 NEWS traffic centre was flooded with calls and tweets from frustrated drivers, some stating they would move the remains over themselves and called the situation “ridiculous”.
According to the City of Calgary’s Roads Department, the reason for the delay was that they needed to bring in a specialized truck with a winch to remove the deer, and the closest one was in the northwest community of Bowness.
“Normally, [the Calgary] Roads [Department], we can respond to incidents much quicker, but the timing of this one was not great as it happened in the middle of rush hour,” explained spokesperson Tara Norton-Merrin.
She added there are only three of these trucks in the city, and one was in the shop.
Norton-Merrin said there is also a policy requiring city employees to wait for that special unit to arrive.
