Member Motion - Councillor Davidson - Report on City's snow cleanup efforts
- Marian
- Feb 26
- 2 min read
At the February 26, 2025 Council Meeting, I introduced an Emergency & Time Sensitive Motion to advocate for residents and obtain detailed information on the City's snow cleanup efforts during the recent extreme weather event.
Council members had the chance to question Operations staff about the progress of cleanup efforts. Additionally, staff provided an informative overview of the inner workings of the snow operations process. If you want answers to your snow clearing questions and concerns then I urge you to watch the meeting video.
Here's a high level summary of the snow-clearing discussion:
The recent storm brought approximately 70 cm of snow, but the more notable figure is 65 cm over just 8 days—a historic event not seen since around 1951. This was an intense, prolonged storm that presented significant challenges.
Despite the city's best efforts, the storm placed a heavy strain on staffing and equipment resources. Labor laws require mandatory rest periods after 70-hour work weeks, impacting workforce availability. Additionally, heavy-duty snow removal equipment, which is used only a few times per year, needed servicing after multiple consecutive days of operation. These factors were key challenges in managing this historic snowfall event.
Initial Approach and Priorities: The priority was set based on the anticipated extent of the storm. Road salting came first, followed by plowing and windrow operations. Sidewalk operations commenced after roads were properly plowed. The strategy had to be sustained for 8-12 days due to the ongoing snowfall.
Snow Removal Efforts: Snow removal has been concentrated on areas with limited storage like the downtown core, laneways, associated side streets, dead ends, bridge decks, and school bus drop zones. They are now working on clearing snow banks from side streets, hauling snow to the operations center.
Sidewalk Clearing: Sidewalk operations start on primary roads, then move to secondaries and smaller streets. The continuous and intense storm meant crews were often called back to primaries before going back and finishing secondaries.
Expectations: Complete snow clearance on every street is not in the works due to cost and manpower. Priority is given to areas with limited snow storage.
One-Lane Plowing Explanation: The streets appear to have one lane because the plows push snow to the right and left, and snow banks from windrows and homeowners narrow the streets.
Contractors: The city uses a mix of in-house staff and outside contractors for snow removal. Road plowing is mostly done by contractors, while windrow operations and sidewalks are handled internally.
Plow Distribution: Each ward has the same number of plows dispatched simultaneously per kilometre of roadways. Municipalities classify roads based on importance and usage. Snow plow routes are determined using a combination of priority-based routing, efficiency modeling and logistical constraints. The southern parts of Richmond Hill benefit from an urban design with closely positioned streets, enabling snow plows to cover ground more efficiently. In contrast, Oak Ridges features a more spacious layout, leading to longer clearing times for each street due to the increased distance between them.