Why aren’t my streets plowed: How the City of Stratford prioritizes plowing after a winter storm

It’s 24 hours after a big snowfall and your street is still shin deep in the white stuff.

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The community Facebook page is filled with the usual gripes: “I guess our street isn’t important,” or “We must not pay enough taxes!”

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Adam Ryan, manager of public works for the City of Stratford, has heard them all.

“When we experience multi-day events, such as this past one, priority roadways may be completed more than once before moving onto lower priority streets in order to maintain our legislated requirements,” Ryan said. “Tuesday’s event brought over 16 consecutive hours of snowfall with an additional four hours of snowfall Wednesday. By dedicating more than 25 staff and over 20 pieces of fleet around the clock, by the end of the day Wednesday, all city streets and sidewalks will have been completed at least once.

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“Operators will continue to work through the night to complete further cleanup.”

The City of Stratford’s public works division and its fleet of three plows, three loaders, one tractor, six sidewalk machines, two road sanders, various dump trucks, snow blowers and other equipment is responsible for clearing a total of nearly 200 kilometers of roadway after any given winter storm. Here’s what you need to know about Stratford’s winter-maintenance strategy:

• Following a significant snow storm, public works prioritizes Stratford’s most heavily used streets first, and pays particular attention to clearing roads and sidewalks in hospital and school areas and bus routes.
• The time it takes to plow the city’s streets depends on how much snow is falling. If snow starts and stops, then a typical rotation through the city takes between 18 and 24 hours to plow. If snow continues, then the primary roads will be plowed again prior to the residential streets. During some winter events, plowing continues for several days using city and contract equipment.
• There are several classifications of roads in the city based on the amount of traffic and speed of the traffic. Other factors including bus routes while school and hospital areas also dictate road classifications. Plow operators are given beats that show them what to plow first and what to plow after that. If you live on a cul-de-sac with a low volume of slow traffic, your street will be plowed, but not before the larger streets with higher volumes of traffic.
• When there’s significant snow or drifting snow, the large plows will clear snow from local roads and highways. Though this removes the snow quickly from the traveled portion of the roads, plows may return one or two times to push snow back as far as possible to provide storage space for the next snowfall. This is best accomplished with a second push at the snow bank. A second reason for followup plowing is to try to expose catch basins, which are essential for allowing melting snow and potential rainfall to drain off the street.
• In order to clear snow from the roadway, property frontages and driveways will receive a grader ridge as plows pass by. If city crews attempted to clear entrances during roadway plowing operations, the process would become very time consuming and very expensive.

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“We would like to remind all residents that we live in a snow-belt area of ​​Ontario in Canada,” Ryan said. “Snow will continue to fall as it does every year. Every snow event is different and brings its own set of challenges. Temperature, winds, snow accumulations, and ice are some of the factors that come into play when dealing with these events.

“Keeping parked cars off of city streets will ensure that the operators can do their job. Please remember that many of our staff are residents and are dedicated and take pride in their job. They put in long hours, missing family events and much of the holiday season to ensure the citizens of Stratford have safe means of travel.”

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