Toronto snow removal could take 3 weeks: 'Extremely time consuming process'

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It could take the City of Toronto as much as three weeks to clear the streets after the weekend storm that delivered another 25 centimetres of snow.

Barbara Gray, general manager of Transportation Services, told reporters Monday that Saturday and Sunday’s snow accumulation added to the 20 centimetres that came last Wednesday and another 10 centimetres the weekend before.

“Due to the amount of snow that we’ve received in recent days, we expect snow removal may take up to three weeks,” said Gray. “As you know, we will be working continuously on this task and we’ll try to get it down as quickly as we can.”

Gray said the declaration of significant weather effect that came in last Wednesday remains in effect for Toronto — meaning all cars have to stay off snow designated routes so that city plows can clear them.

“If there are streetcars on streetcar tracks, do not park on that street. If you park on a snow route, you can be fined and your car can be towed,” she said.

Vincent Sferrazza, the city’s director of Transportation Service, said more than 2,300 tickets have been issued for vehicles parked in snow designated routes.

Gray said the priorities for plowing are main streets, sidewalks and pedestrian signals, transit hubs, hospitals and emergency service stations, school bus loading zones and roads with limited snow storage space.

And with cold temperatures in effect for the next week, “the snow’s not going to move unless we move it,” said Gray. “So that’s another reason the operations will take a while.”

Sferrazza said all 1,400 pieces of the city’s maintenance equipment were out plowing over the weekend doing multiple rounds, “and this is going to continue (Monday) and throughout (Tuesday).”

Sferrazza said the three-week estimate of total snow removal in Toronto is due to the fact that plowing snow on a one-kilometre local residential road “takes approximately five to 10 minutes. And that’s a vehicle travelling at about 15 km/h. Snow removal on that same road can take up to ten hours.”

There’s also safety equipment that follows all removal equipment.

“So it’s an extremely time consuming, slow process,” said Sferrazza.

Sferrazza also reminded people not to shovel snow from their private or commercial property and dump it onto city roads or sidewalks “because that means our crews have to come back again and clear that area that was already previously cleared. And it is also a violation of our bylaw.”

He noted the last time Toronto was hit this hard by a snow storm was a one-day period in January 2022 when the city got 50-55 cm.

The OPP said on Monday it had responded to approximately 100 collisions and an additional 100 stranded vehicles in the GTHA over the past 24 hours.

“If you need to be on the roads be mindful that there is still snow on many of the shoulders, that they’re may be slush on some of the less travelled lanes,” said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.

“But the plows have been out. The roadways are, for the most part, very clear, dry and wide open. You could still have some wet spots, and some icy spots, as we are still well below the freezing mark.”

In terms of transit, the TTC’s Line 1 subway between Bloor and Eglinton was shut down Monday morning due to ice build-up on the power rail, with service expected to return by the afternoon, according to TTC spokesman Adrian Grundy.

Shuttle buses were running “quite well,” he said, as the roads were plowed.

“Right now we have anti-icing trains moving through there so at this moment they’re doing that,” said Grundy.

“They are storm trains and they’re spreading anti-icing. This has been an extraordinary event but one has involved the TTC continuing to run relatively smoothly given the pace and the rate of the snow that has been falling.”

Environment Canada was forecasting more flurries in Toronto on Monday and Tuesday with about 2 centimetres forecasted daily with wind chills near -18C and -20C, respectively.

jstevenson@postmedia.com