K
eeping a residential driveaway clear of snow can be a daunting task for homeowners enduring another long Midland winter.
Now, imagine the effort involved in the organization, scheduling, and mobilization of winter snow removal equipment required by the Town of Midland operations team to keep Midland’s massive grid of roadways and sidewalks clear of snow each winter.
The Town’s Operations Department is responsible for maintaining roads and sidewalks to a high standard of service and safety. That means following the Ontario Minimum Maintenance Standards (MMS) during snow events, large and small. And regardless of where you live, the plows have to be activated in a sequence that prioritizes high traffic roads which aid emergency service vehicles on their routes.
Sometimes that requires the cooperation of residents; from November 15th to April 1st, all Town roads and parking lots need to be clear of vehicles between the hours of 12am and 7am to allow for plowing. Unfortunately, not everyone cooperates, and that can cause issues for Town employees tasked with plowing.
“I would love to say everyone is understanding,” said Town of Midland Operations Manager Joshua Fuller. “When we’re in the middle of a storm, we have to plow main roads before we start plowing residential roads and laneways. These are rules mandated by the MMS to help keep critical roads free of snow.”
To help educate residents and provide information related to winter road maintenance, Fuller said information is available on the Town’s website on the winter maintenance web page, outlining Town, resident and County of Simcoe responsibilities for snow removal. Residents can also download and print the Winter Maintenance Fact Sheet.
An online citizen plow tracker app, ‘Where’s my Plow’, keeps residents up to date on plowing operations. “The ‘Where’s My Plow’ application on our website is a tool available to residents to track when plows have gone through their neighbourhood,” said Fuller. “There is a 40-minute delay on the tracking of the plow, but it gives residents an idea of when they can expect their road to be plowed.”
Winter Operations staff are always happy to meet directly with residents and have hosted two Winter Operations Open House in 2023 and 2024, where Operations staff met with the public to share insights on strategies and procedures the Town uses on snow removal tactics. The public was invited to engage directly with Operations staff, observe equipment used for winter maintenance and snow removal, share their concerns and ask any questions.
“It’s nice that the community has options to come in with any questions they might have about the how, why, and when we come up with our snow plowing activity. It gives us opportunity to explain to residents some of our challenges in dealing with road plowing, like making sure that we’re maintaining those minimum standards. We look forward to hosting another Open House in late Fall 2025.”
Ultimately, Fuller said the goal is to bring public awareness to how winter operations works to keep residents and visitors moving safely throughout town during heavy winter snowfalls. That’s important given the fact that Midland has already had more snow this season than all of 2024.