Last week while undertaking my regular chores in the big city, I popped in to see my friend who lives quite close to our former city abode. The previous night his neighbourhood, like ours, had received a major snowfall. His streets were still snow-covered and slushy. The city plow had not been around to clear the local streets. Presumably, the plows were “out there” working hard clearing the major transport arteries so that folks could get to work? But it was 1pm now. 

Where were the plows? Waiting a long time for snow removal in the city is a common occurrence. After a snowfall it used to take four to six hours before the plow arrived to clear the road at our former house. And that plow only cleared the part of the road where the operator could keep moving forward. No backing up. No extended curves. We lived on a small alcove. The “clean up” job of getting to our driveway was left for a contractor with a giant front-end loader and was performed usually two to four hours after the city plow went through. Many times I could not get from my driveway to the cleared portion of the road – a distance of 20-30 feet because the plow had left a giant snow-swell to negotiate just to get to the cleared portion of my road.

After each major snowfall in the city, arterial roads are always cleared first. Then bus routes. Most residents are therefore required to make their way onto the arterial roads in whatever manner they can  before the suburban streets are cleared. Maybe that is why so many folks have four-wheeled drive vehicles (like me)? Regardless, it always seemed ridiculous that this scenario played out every time it snowed.

I could not help but notice as I walked to my friend’s front door that an independent snow-clearing service operator was blowing the snow from a neighbour’s driveway across the street. Two quick passes and he was off to the house next door where he repeated the manoeuvre. Thanks to his efforts, those affected residents could then get out of their driveway and onto the unplowed snow-covered city streets. But of course, at 1pm when he arrived, most had already somehow navigated the snow and gone to work.

For these operators, the actual driveway snow removal takes about one minute at most. Unfortunately, between the garage door and where the operator safely stops before hitting the door, a pile of snow is left behind. It’s often wet, and heavy. Few people pay for custom snow shovelling to their front door, so, of course, the walkway to the front door must also be cleared. Is it any wonder that urban Canadians suffer from bad backs, strained muscles, or even heart attacks from tackling winter snows! Even if they subscribe to a snow-clearing contract.

Here is another bizarre element to this snow-clearing picture. If you were to look down my friend’s street – and the scene is repeated in almost every subdivision in the big city suburbs – what you would see in virtually every driveway is a pair of signs. Each sign prominently displays a name and a telephone number. Supposedly the signs are there to show the snow-clearing operator (who works for the company named on the signs) to clear snow in the driveway between the signs. No.No.No. Its really blatant advertising on everybody’s front driveway! And its ugly.

With or without driveway clearing, the city plow will eventually get to each house. When it comes, it throws a huge pile of compacted snow to the base of the driveway. This little surprise usually awaits the resident who comes home after a day at work. For urban folk with a driveway, winter is a time for (a lot of) snow shovelling, whether the snow is provided from the heavens or as a by-product from the snow-clearing companies or from the city snowplows.

Compare that urban scene, though, with what happens in my rural community. 

For that same two-day period, municipal plows began during the night to clear the arterial connectors and even the rural roads to ensure, among other things, that the large dairy trucks could still get to local farms early that next day for the milk. Rural urbanized areas were next so that school buses could do their jobs. These tasks were in pretty good shape by about 7:30am. At this (early) point in the morning, my driveway was covered with snow, but my snow-clearing contractor jumped into action immediately after the municipal plow went through our community streets. He cleared my driveway and others nearby. And when I lifted my garage door, he took away the portion next to the garage door. I could then safely leave my house knowing that all roadways would be as clear as the elements would allow. Roads for me were quite drivable when I left, and I am sure they did not require a four-wheeled drive vehicle. (Alas, though, I can count on the fingers of my two hands the small number of vehicles in my area that do not have four-wheel drive. This is, after all, a rural community!).

When I left my friend’s house that snowy day the city plow had not yet been through. I worked my way to the highway and then started home. Unfortunately for me the freezing rain had begun but the highways remained clear and the arterials to my house were sanded to ward off ice on those roads. As I approached my house, I could not help but notice the municipal plow again working on our community streets, this time clearing the roads deeply, trying to remove snow from the road and applying some salt to the bare pavement to thwart the adverse effects of freezing rain. 

Right after I entered my driveway the plow appeared and left the dreaded packed snow at the end of my driveway. Thankfully, I was not going anywhere else that day, but about fifteen minutes later my snow contractor appeared to remove the heavy snow/ice from my driveway. A rural community miracle? Or is it just more organized good sense?

I sat in my living room chair that evening rather smugly admiring how clear my driveway and my rural street were. How long, I thought, would I have waited in my former urban house for the street to be cleared. Would I have thrown out my back removing the snow from the part of the road the municipal plow had left for the front-end loader to move?

It seems better living in this growing rural community, but I suspiciously wonder how long these good winter snow removal days are going to last. I am curious to know whether in the more suburban nearby communities of Russell or Embrun residents are experiencing the out-of-sync snow-clearing regimen that characterizes the everyday snow removal experience in the big city. I notice as well that they’ve got the ugly driveway signs there!

Will it always be better here, or will times change and snow removal become like the “sad urban way”? 

And will our streets continue to be littered with more of those unsightly driveway signs?