Looking at many neighbourhoods, it seems Toronto’s snow removal plan is to wait for warmer weather

Open this photo in gallery:

Born in Ottawa, I spent the first four years of my life in San Francisco before moving to London, Ont. One late autumn morning after we arrived, I was in the bath and outside the window saw white flakes cascading down in waves. I leapt from the tub, ran into the backyard and stood naked as the cold alien precipitation swirled around me. A few moments later, my mother scooped me up and returned me to safety.

You will be hard pressed to find a better analogy for Toronto’s response to snowstorms and clearing our roads – mystified and unprepared.

It has been almost three weeks since a record amount of snow hit Toronto, but much of the city remains encased in snow. Though major routes have been cleared, side streets are icy one-lane canyons that can be treacherous to navigate. Street parking is decimated. Bike lanes are now “Bike Drifts” as they are where the snow from the road ends up. You can find “No Parking - Snow Removal” signs plunged into snow drifts that prohibit parking and promise that the snow bluffs will be gone soon. They are a forlorn hope.

This may have something to do with the fact that, as the CBC has noted, in 2021 Toronto mayor John Tory signed snow-clearing contracts that “don’t include any provisions for snow removal. Contracted companies are only responsible for plowing city streets, so they have no obligation to actually take the snow, load it onto dump trucks and drive it out to a storage facility.”

Between Jan. 25 and Feb. 10, city crews hauled almost 240,000 tonnes to designated snow storage sites, which is a start. In a statement, the city says “Targeted snow removal will continue across the city with a focus on narrow streets, sidewalks and bike lanes.”

It’s not just Toronto that is demoralized. Cambridge, Ont. residents are reported to be taking their ire out on city workers.

“Some of the things our staff are hearing can be threatening at times,” Rob Axiak, a manager at the City of Cambridge, told 570 NewsRadio. “They’re quite vulgar in many ways. Lots of profanities are being said to them. This is not just our operators, by the way, this is also our bylaw staff, our customer service staff at counters ... We’ve actually had people, like residents, throw things at our operators. Throw shovels at our trucks as they go by.”

By now you may be asking, “Hey, Road Sage, if you’re so smart why don’t you fix the problem?” I’ll answer in four parts.

• Do I have a constructive solution to offer? No.
• Do I have expertise or experience in winter road maintenance in large urban areas? I do not.
• Is there any reason that a right-thinking person would give weight to my opinions on such matters? None.
• Will this stop me from whining about the state of our snow-blocked streets? No. No. A thousand times, no.

But my help may not be required. Toronto is calling upon an unlikely ally – the sun.

Here’s how it works:

The earth tilts at about 23.5 degrees on its axis. During the winter, the northern hemisphere (where Canada resides) tilts away from the sun and temperatures drop. As the earth continues its orbit, the northern hemisphere gradually tilts more and more toward the sun. By late March, the sun’s rays hit the Earth at a sharper, more direct angle and the northern hemisphere warms. Higher temperatures bring about the arrival of “spring.”

They say, “Father Time is undefeated.” Well, how about the sun? When the sun warms the Earth’s surface above zero degrees Celsius, snow melts. When it melts, its gone. The sun has proven 100-per-cent effective when it comes to snow removal.

Just look at last year. On Feb. 12, 2025, a major snowstorm hit the city. Twenty-five centimetres of snow fell on Toronto, and over the next 10 days another 53 centimetres. The city subsequently got more than 25,000 calls requesting snow clearing. The city vowed that the snow would be removed by mid-March. It wasn’t.

Mayor Olivia Chow called the situation “unacceptable” and things looked grim; that is, until Toronto started using the sun.

By April, the snow was all gone.

So, take heart. The snow will be gone by April. We can then settle into spring and look forward to the summer when we can be unprepared for record rainfalls and heat waves.