Winter Road & Sidewalk Maintenance

The City has five Road Weather Information System (RWIS) stations located across Barrie. A RWIS is a network of roadway sensors connected to provide up to the minute accurate pavement conditions. These conditions are then translated into weather data for our operators to see. RWIS systems allow road crews to make informed decisions on road maintenance actions based on current weather conditions.

Each RWIS station electronically monitors air and pavement temperatures and can create detailed information regarding the impact of winter storms on highways. More specifically, RWIS stations can individually identify and monitor the presence of water, ice, slush, snow or frost, wind, general moisture.

With the detailed information that an RWIS station provides, our road crews are able to make more informed decisions regarding winter maintenance operations and make the best use out of materials and staff. This results in a more efficient, cost effective approach to road maintenance.

An electronic spreader controller (ESC) is a device installed in winter maintenance vehicles that allows the operator to control the amount application quantity and location of de-icing materials. This results in accurately dispersed materials and reduces waste.

Electronic spreader controls minimize salt wastage by ensuring that the appropriate application rate is achieved. An ESC controls the amount of salt dispersed based vehicle speed. This maintains a consistent and accurate application of materials.

Example: If a winter maintenance vehicle is traveling at a certain speed, an ESC is able to monitor the speed and adjust spreading levels accordingly.

During winter, Roads Operations ensures that all public traffic services provided by the City are as safe and accessible as possible. Roads Operations maintains City-owned parking zones, parking lots, and crosswalks.

Parking and Transit Operations clears snow from pay & display machines and sidewalks and walkways within City owned parking lots. 

Public bus stops and shelters are maintained by Barrie Transit's contractor, MVT. Crews aim to clear all stops no more than two days following the conclusion of a snow event, with priority stops being cleared first.

The City of Barrie does not maintain parks and trails or hills during the winter months; users assume all risk.

City staff clear/salt the bike path from Kempenfelt Drive to Hurst Drive; create and maintain 6 outdoor rinks and assist with volunteer outdoor ice rinks; and keep garbage containers free of snow and maintained throughout several key areas in parks.

Parks staff maintain a portion of the waterfront trail (one main walking trail) from Heritage Park to ‎Minet's Point Road, and the bike path from Kempenfelt Drive to Hurst Drive. Parking lots around the waterfront are maintained so that residents can drive to and enjoy a winter walk on the waterfront.

Sidewalks in the central business district (Dunlop, Collier, Mulcaster, High, & intervening streets) are cleared by the adjoining property owners as required by the Snow Clearing (Downtown) By-law. Remaining sidewalks are cleared by City crews.

With sidewalks of various shapes and sizes, crews use an arsenal of tools for sidewalk maintenance including rotary brooms, v-blade plows, and blowers. Using different tools allows us to safely and properly maintain winter sidewalks in two ways:

1. Helps to reduce damage to grass caused by sidewalk plows;
2. Allows for more extensive maintenance of different sized and shaped sidewalks.

Residents are asked to try to keep vehicles parked away from sidewalks so both our road and sidewalks plows can better clean the roads.

During winter months, crews will periodically perform snow removal procedures in the downtown area and portions of Allandale to allow access to parking meters and free movement of traffic (both vehicular and pedestrian). These operations are usually performed when snow accumulation has reached approximately 30 inches. When snow removal operations are underway, the City will temporarily bag the parking meters. This NO PARKING ban applies to all residents. Vehicles that interfere with the removal of snow can be ticketed and towed.

Overnight on-street parking is not permitted on most streets from 12:01am–7:00am, December 1st through March 31st (3am–6am within the Downtown Business Improvement Area). This ensures the City can completely clear streets of snow and that large emergency vehicles can get down the street. Outside of this time period, overnight on-street parking will not be permitted should a "Winter Maintenance Event" be declared.​ Please refer to the Overnight Parking By-law for more information. 

As per the Traffic By-law, parking is not permitted in any hybrid parking lots (Spirit Catcher, Lakeshore Drive, and North Marina lots) or waterfront parking areas (lots and on-street) from 12:01am to 5am, December 1 through March 31. 

Please note: Parking on lawns is not permitted year-round. Parking is only permitted on your driveway as per the Zoning By-Law (sections 4.8.1 and 5.3.6.1).

The City devotes a great deal of resources to keep streets and sidewalks clear of snow and ice after a snowfall. Residents often deposit snow and ice from their property onto the street or sidewalk not realizing this contravenes the Nuisance (Use of Public Property) By-Law, contributes to unsafe driving and walking conditions, and increases the cost of providing winter road maintenance. When you're clearing snow from your driveway, please keep this snow on your property. Your efforts in making winter driving and walking safe for everyone are appreciated.

Tip for clearing driveways: Piling snow to the right side of the driveway can help reduce the amount of snow pushed back into the driveway. Standing in the driveway and looking at the street determines the right side. Don’t forget to remove your parked car from the street during snow removal operations.

Do you need help clearing the snow from your driveway, or can you help other residents?  Snow Angels Canada is an online platform where residents who require assistance with snow shoveling can post a request for service and volunteers in their area can reach out to help. Visit snowangelscanada.ca to join the program! The City does not own or operate the online platform, but City staff worked with Snow Angels Canada to customize it for Barrie residents.

Please ensure that your children do not play where snow is piled at the side of the road or in the middle of courts where snowplow operators may not see them.

During winter months, snow and ice make walking very difficult. Here are some suggestions to help keep winter walking safe for everyone:

• Clear snow and ice away from catch basins and hydrants in front of your property.
• When clearing snow from parking lots do not push it into adjacent public land.
• During and immediately after a snowstorm, reduce your driving speed to account for slippery road conditions and snow clearing operations.
• During thaws, reduce your driving speed to avoid splashing pedestrians and prevent water from splashing onto the sidewalk where it will freeze into ice and become a hazard.
• Please do not park any vehicles over the sidewalk. Even a partially blocked sidewalk prevents the plows from doing their job properly.
• Please ensure that any structures are placed well back of the property line.

Parked cars make plowing difficult and sometimes impossible. With your help, winter maintenance crews can plow faster and more efficiently and you will reduce the chances of having to dig your car out of a snow bank.

To facilitate the removal of snow from sidewalks and to prevent damage to private property, residents are required not to place cars, fences, posts, hedges, shrubs, driveway curbs or other obstructions on the road allowance. The City will not be responsible for damage to items placed on City property by property owners.

Barrie has over 4,000 hydrants that need to be cleared every time there is a snowfall. Please help keep hydrants clear of snow.

From December 1 through March 31: 

• Overnight on-street parking is not permitted 3–6am within the Downtown BIA, and 12:01–7am on other City-owned streets, for winter road maintenance operations. For full information on these restrictions please refer to the Overnight Parking By-law.
• Overnight parking is also not permitted in any hybrid parking lots or waterfront parking areas (lots and on-street) from 12:01–5am. For full information on these restrictions please refer to the Traffic By-law.

Due to Provincial regulations there is a maximum number of hours that plow drivers can be on duty. Further, all drivers are typically required in at the same time on all routes to provide a consistently high level of service across the city during snowfall. Therefore, more staff would need to be hired for an additional shift if the City were to provide 24/7 service on Residential routes, resulting in increased costs that would likely have an impact on ratepayers.

Priority and Secondary routes (cleared 24/7) are set up so residents don't have to travel far to get to a road that is maintained throughout the day and night.

Pushing snow onto or across the road is an infraction of the Nuisance (Use of Public Property) By-law. Please report to Enforcement Services by calling 705-739-4241 at the time of occurrence (messages are retrieved 24/7 December through March).​​

The City of Barrie's plows cannot control the amount of snow that leaves the end of the wing. All residents in Barrie are responsible for the removal of driveway windrows as the City does not provide this service. A private contractor may be a suitable option for those looking for this level of service.

Please note that while some GTA communities offer this service, Barrie receives more annual snowfall (286 cm on average) and more days requiring plow service. Comparable municipalities for snowfall include North Bay, Thunder Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie, where this service is not currently provided.

If you feel clearing snow from ends of driveways should be a City service, please take the time to add your suggestion to the City's suggestion forum, as staff may report on current requirements for implementing the suggestion including any operational challenges. The forum provides residents with an organized way of expressing, categorizing, and collaborating on suggestions for their City; it also provides City staff with the means to identify and measure ideas that are supported by the community and that may impact the City's budget. 

Each snow maintenance vehicle servicing Barrie’s roads is equipped with a GPS tracking device. The Plow Tracker provides information regarding the last time a city road was plowed and/or treated (brine, salt, sand) as required, based on road conditions. Your street may not have been plowed, but instead treated. 

In adherence to the City’s winter maintenance levels of service, a combination of City-owned trucks and contracted units provide effective snow plowing services to Barrie roads through our Priority, Secondary, and Residential routes system. Priority and Secondary road surfaces are kept as bare as possible, while Residential road surfaces are maintained to a snow-packed condition.

Salt is applied to Primary and Secondary routes. The level of service on Primary and Secondary routes is to keep them as bare as possible. These are roads that include bus routes, roads with heavy traffic or higher speeds or steep grades.

As an additive to brine, the City uses a blend of agricultural molasses and magnesium chloride to de-ice the roads. The agricultural molasses/magnesium chloride additive reduces the need for salt and is much better for the environment. The additive makes the salt effective at much lower temperatures.​

The City uses salt or pickled sand (sand mixed with roughly 5% salt) to treat Residential routes. The level of service on these roads is to maintain a snow-packed condition as weather permits. The pickled sand provides traction for drivers and pedestrians to get around safely on these roads when conditions render the use of salt ineffective.

In 2001, Environment Canada released an assessment report stating that road salts are entering the environment in large amounts and are posing a risk to plants, animals, birds, fish, lake and stream ecosystems and groundwater. In 2004, Environment Canada produced the Code of Practice for the Environmental Management of Road Salts. The objective was to ensure environmental protection while maintaining roadway safety.

In 2010, an evaluation of drinking water issues was completed for the City drinking water supply system. It found that concentrations of sodium and chloride for certain municipal supply wells within the central portion of Barrie are trending upward and may exceed Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standards. Since 2010, most municipalities—including the City of Barrie—have adopted the Code of Practice and annually report to Environment Canada to minimize salt use and research alternative materials.

The City staff has developed a Salt Optimization Strategy that allows us to lead by example and demonstrate that safe environmentally conscious road salt management and winter maintenance practices are a priority for the municipality. Every year, City staff review all routes each year to identify areas that can be removed from the Primary (salted) routes. 

Chances are the next street over is a City Transit route and they are given an increased priority by Council policy. Transit routes are on priority or secondary routes and receive service24 hours per day. Residential streets receive service after 8cm of snow and are usually plowed overnight.

In a continuing snow storm, we apply salt to the road surface early in the storm. This causes a melting action that prevents snow that falls later from freezing to the road surface. When the plow does come along, the road gets cleaned down to the pavement and we do not get a frozen snow pack that is very difficult and expensive to remove later.

Salt in the middle of the road is where it's needed for freezing rain events. As it rains, the crown of the road causes water to drain to curb. If salt wasn’t in the middle, part of the road wouldn’t receive salt brine treatment as it rains. The rain makes brine as salt dissolves.

Reasons a plow might be travelling with the blade up:

• The plow is heading to and from routes.
• Salt was recently put on that section of road, so plow drivers will lift the blades in order to not scrape off the freshly laid salt.
• Most plows are equipped with anti-icing liquid tanks. Blades are typically up when the trucks are performing anti-icing due to freezing rain warning.

Most of these calls come from residents with driveways that are the first ones to the right of an intersection or are the first driveway when entering the bulb of a cul-de-sac. The reason for the problem is that when a snowplow turns to the right it sweeps a much larger area of the road than when it is travelling in a straight line. The snow also does not discharge from the plow when it is turning hard right because the plows are angled from left to right on the truck. Turning right effectively makes the plow push all the snow ahead instead of moving it from the center of the road to the side.

The first driveway encountered after plow straightens out usually gets more snow than others in the immediate area. We can’t do much about this in most cases. If there is enough room we can sometimes get rid of some of the snow before the driveway is reached. Another point to understand, is that a fixed snowplow cannot carry snow around to put it where desired. The plow moves snow from the centre of the road to the side of the road; the driver cannot make adjustments to change that.

Generally during the day (unless the street is otherwise posted) it is legal to park on the road. Parking is prohibited during the winter (December 1st to March 31st) on any street between 12am and 7am, with the exception of the Downtown Business Improvement Area where parking of a vehicle will continue to be prohibited between the hours of 3am and 6am.

By-law enforcement staff will have vehicles towed for violating the overnight parking by-law, when the vehicle is noted in continuous violation or creating an immediate safety concern. If you have a specific location, please provide that to Enforcement Services directly at 705-739-4241.

For larger snow falls it is common to do an initial pass to clear streets and then follow up with a second pass to clear and new fallen and residual snow and to wing back the banks to make room for snow storage that will be required for future storms.

Residential streets are also plowed when they become soft or slushy to prevent ruts, pot holes and icy conditions from developing when the temperature drops and the road re-freezes. When milder temperatures are experienced it also causes additional melt water that can lead to pooling of water and other drainage/flooding problems if catch basins are covered with ice and snow. Slush is removed from the edge of road to improve drainage leading to and around catch basins during the plowing process.

The permanent speed cushions have been piloted during the winter months with no concerns from winter maintenance staff.

Sidewalk plowing presents many challenges; throughout the winter it is difficult to tell exactly where the edge of the sidewalk is, and when the ground is not frozen some damage can occur. Damage to City grass, pavement and City-owned trees is repaired in the spring. Please report damage by providing your address and details:

• Call or email Service Barrie at 705-726-4242 or ServiceBarrie@barrie.ca 
• Visit ServiceBarrie.ca (login or account creation required)

Your address will be added to a list for repair when materials are available. Quick repairs (seeding) are typically done at the end of April or beginning of May. Major repairs (sod) are generally done later as they are dependent on sod availability.

We try to get one side of the street open on as many streets as possible as soon as possible and then come back to clear the rest. Sidewalk priorities include school zones, public buildings, the hospital, etc. which generate a high level of pedestrian traffic.

We frequently have issues with snow plows filling in sidewalks that are in close proximity to the road. Staff do their best to coordinate sidewalk clearing to take place following road plowing however this is difficult during larger and extended storms when multiple passes are required to clear roads. Sidewalk machines with blowers travel much slower than road plows making it difficult to keep up.

This issue is especially common on bridges: bridge decks are cleared on a regular basis but can become built up with snow overtime due to limited space for snow storage on these structures. Roads, Parks and Fleet dept. carries out snow lift/removals on bridges as required to make room for continued maintenance.

The City has a system of Priority routes on arterial roads and Secondary routes on residential roads that are each assigned to various operators. Sidewalk plows often travel on roads to and from their route or work location as it is a quicker method of travel than by sidewalk.

The City’s service level and budget allocation for winter maintenance on sidewalks is to maintain them to a snow-packed condition, and sidewalk plows/blowers are not capable of clearing snow and ice from sidewalks to the extent that bare concrete is exposed in all conditions.

Snow and ice often bonds to the concrete during extreme temperatures, and ice can also form on snow packed sidewalks during thaw/freeze cycles. Other factors, such as overgrown turf on the edge of the sidewalk or a buildup of residual ice and snow under wheel tracks, can cause the edge of the plow or blower to ride above the surface of the sidewalk. All affected areas are treated with sand for traction.

This is done when fluctuating temperatures are causing melting snow/ice that freezes as the temperature drops, resulting in slippery conditions on the sidewalks. City sidewalk plows sand these areas in the interest of public safety to prevent slip and falls. The sanding process involves travelling the entire route to identify areas that require sanding; although the plow may not have been applying sand when you saw it, there may have been conditions elsewhere along the route that required sanding.

Although stakes can help to alert operators of grass/infrastructure, we ask residents place their stakes 4 to 6 inches off the sidewalk and boulevard. This will allow for the attachments and machine to maneuver safely.

The City's (and contractors) sidewalk machines are 51" wide (4'3"). The cutting edges (blades) on the attachments are also 51". This is an industry standard for the equipment required for the job (4 wheel drive, articulating, and engine horsepower).

Downtown businesses within specific geographic boundaries are responsible for removing all snow and ice from sidewalks in front of, alongside or at the rear of the building, premise or vacant lot before 10am, seven days a week, per the Snow Clearing (Downtown) By-law.

If there is 10+ cm on the sidewalk between 4am to 5am, City crews will attend to the sidewalks with a machine to assist. Due to the time of this snow removal, further snow or ice may have accumulated and business owners are still expected to ensure their sidewalks are free of snow and ice by 10am.

Learn more about the by-law