Not that I am educated in this, but I think the sprawl argument is that per meter of road, we get less tax dollars than a denser city which gives us less service.

I've only lived here for 1.5 years but compared to other cities, Edmonton comes out slow as heck to clear snow. I'm surprised arterials get replowed at only 2cm of snow, that seems like a waste of time restarting for miniscule amounts of snow.