Windrow Clearing

A windrow is a pile of snow left at the bottom of a driveway after a snowplow has cleared the road.

Windrow machines are designed to clear a portion of the driveway entrance so a car can drive through. However, due to the limited size and reach of the windrow-clearing units, they can only clear a portion of the driveway entrance – residual amounts of snow may be left behind.
 

The City’s windrow service does not clear windrows left by sidewalk plows or hardened snow, ice or the entire driveway. It is your responsibility to clear the small windrow across a driveway created by sidewalk plows. 

Our windrow-clearing service follows our snowplowing operations. Due to the different operating speeds of snowplows and windrow-clearing units, our windrow-clearing service runs on a separate schedule from our plowing operations.

The windrow-clearing service is completed up to four hours after a snowplow has passed. However, certain factors can delay our operations, such as heavy snowfalls (10 centimetres or more), cars parked on the street — which make it difficult for snowplows to clear the roads — and cars parked on driveways that are too close to or hanging over the curb.

Watch this video to see a City windrow-clearing machine in action: