Snow/Weather and impact: 1) Today’s Weather Warning: Snowfall 2) Recent heavy snowfall in Barrie ignites debate about windrow
Friday February 28th, 2025 – Winter Travel Advisory
Courtesy Barrie360.com
Snowfall Warning
- Hunstville – Baysville
- Parry Sound
- Haliburton
Significant snowfall expected today.
What:
Total snowfall accumulations of 15 to 20 cm.
Peak snowfall rates of 2 to 4 cm per hour.
Reduced visibility in heavy snow.
When:
This afternoon into early Saturday morning.
Additional information:
An Alberta Clipper will bring snow, heavy at times, to the area. The heaviest snowfall is expected this afternoon and evening, thus likely impacting the afternoon commute.
Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow. Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots may become difficult to navigate due to accumulating snow.
Be prepared to adjust your driving with changing road conditions.
2) Recent heavy snowfall in Barrie ignites debate about windrow
Courtesy Barrie360.com
By Ian MacLennan, February 21, 2025
Fist raised, maybe a few curse words under your breath, as the plow you are grateful for clears your street but that you also hate because it leaves a pile of snow at the end of the driveway.
The snow left at the bottom of the driveway after a plow clears the road is called a windrow.
The recent winter storms and snow squalls Barrie has received this month have prompted social media debate about whether the city should invest in an additional storm service to clear windrows from residential driveways.
Toronto, Vaughan and Burlington have programs to clear windrows, so why not Barrie?
It’s not like that question hasn’t been asked before.
“We provided a memo to (city) council back in 2017 as we had a similar request,” according to Dave Friary, the city’s director of operations. “People were asking for that service. At the time, the estimate was $4.5 million to provide that service throughout the city. If we put that into today’s dollars, we’d probably be in the $10 million range.”
Friary points out that where windrow service is offered in the GTA, those communities also receive significantly less snowfall and have fewer plowing days than Barrie.
“Barrie averages 286 cm (113 inches) of snowfall annually while communities such as Vaughan average 100cm (39 inches) per year,” the city stated in an email. “More appropriate comparators would be municipalities north of Barrie, such as North Bay, Thunder Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie, where this service is not currently provided.”
Windrow removing programs are offered to eligible residents in Waterloo, Kitchener and Brantford.
Friary notes not everyone in Toronto benefits from the windrow service, in particular people who live on narrow or high density streets.
Since the winter storms and squalls of the past week, there has been a massive dig by City of Barrie works crews to clear snow from roads and sidewalks, and to trim back snowbanks, prioritizing arterial and collector streets, especially those with curb-faced sidewalks, narrowing curb lanes, and on-street cycling lanes.
“We’re doing everything we can to remove the snow as quickly as possible,” said Friary.
Once snowbanks reach five or six feet, he says windrow service isn’t effective because there’s no place to put the snow.
“As we have seen this week, it wouldn’t work.”
There is also the added cost of purchasing equipment if Barrie were to invest in a windrow service program, and it could actually make snow-clearing in the city a slower process.
“You look at the City of Toronto’s media releases. They’re indicating it could take three weeks to clean everything up. You have to have the plow go by, then have a tractor with the gates on it, and then you’d have to have a sand or salt truck go by. The plow and the piece of machinery behind it can’t get too far apart. That would be like crawling through some of these streets and neighbourhoods, and it would probably double or triple the amount of time it would take to do a route.”
Barrie’s current snow-clearing budget is around $9.2 million.
“To do windrow clearing, you would have to double that, and it’s a lot of money, and the effectiveness of the program, as we’ve seen this week, wouldn’t work, which is why we are lifting snow,” Friary said.
It’s not as if Friary doesn’t feel your back-breaking pain from all the shovelling residents have had to do this winter.
“This being a record-setting year. It’s tough to keep everybody happy.”
More about the City of Barrie’s winter maintenance programs: https://www.barrie.ca/services-payments/road-sidewalk-maintenance/winter-maintenance
By the numbers:
- The city’s winter maintenance responsibilities include 1,575 km of road, 662 km of sidewalks, 25 parking lots, 72 crosswalks and downtown sidewalk intersections