Winter trail maintenance
 

How are the trails and bike lanes in your city maintained in the winter, is an effort made to clear them or are they left to be used for skiing? I see both cases in my area.

MUPs are groomed for skiing, but remain multi-use. I'll stay off of them for a few days after snowfall to avoid leaving deep ruts, during which pedestrians usually pack down a solid single-track down the center of the path. Bike lanes, what few there are, become snow dumps for the plows.

I prefer unmaintained trails.

The volume of snow is low enough here that it is easily packed by foot traffic as it falls.

When they plow it, they start salting it, and it just turns into a brown slushy mess.

In city stuff is cleared. It takes 1-2 days for them to get most of it done. It's done by the parks and rec department, which is strangely a holy sanctuary of funding in my town (you can't cut it). Their trucks are a bit undersized to clear roads, so they don't get pulled off for that.

The out of town stuff is limestone and it's left.


The bike lanes are in the middle of travel lanes in most places. So they have to be cleared. Our whole 8 blocks of bike lanes...

Trails aren't maintained in the winter at all. It's not that big of a deal. We might have snow on the ground five days a year.
Lanes, when it gets icy, get the same gravel and sand coating as the rest of the road.

Luckily, we don't get any snow. Okay, maybe a couple of inches as a one-time event each year. However, our city manager saw fit to end all bike path maintenance this year, winter and summer. Many of the bike paths end up with from several inches to several feet of water when we get a bit of rain. There are a few semi-permanent ponds on some of the paths. Almost all of the flooding problems are the result of damage to the paths caused by city employees driving trucks on them, mostly as a short-cut.

Still, it looks a lot easier to roll through a bit of liquid water than the frozen stuff, but I wouldn't know. I am such a weather wimp that I have always lived in areas with temperatures (mostly) on the high side of zero Celsius.

Around here we get 96" of annual snowfall, it's the first of 15 years that I'll be in the city for the winter and I am anticipating what it will be like, in the rural areas we just shared the road. In the city the MUP get kinda, sorta plowed after a big snow, the lanes end up being dumped on until the salt and chemicals melt it down. The paths out of town get turned over to the skiers and snowshoe traffic. It will be the first year that I try studded tires, I'm going to pick them up in just a little while.

Marc

The Minuteman Rail trail starts in Arlington, MA, goes through Lexington, and ends in my town, Bedford. In Arlington, closest to Boston, the town plows the MM. In Lexington a bike advocacy group raises money and pays for plowing. In Bedford, the towns bicycle advisory committee is pushing to have the last mile of the MM plowed. It may not get done this year, but I think that it is likely to happen in the near future.

Speedo

From what I have seen around here they clean trails up in the high density areas downtown/eastside, where they go through busy popular parks. Other areas not. I actually prefer they don't do the one by my house as when they have plowed it, it screws up my skiing.

There is no organized snow/ice removal on the MUPs in the DC area. For some reason, the W&OD was plowed during last Thursday's snow from Shirlington Road to George Mason Dr and from the Custis Trail intersection to van Buren St in East Falls Church.

Where I am at some of the paved paths get plowed by some kind of equipment apparently not particularly suited for the task. It leaves lots of icy rumble strips. I won't ride on it and will instead take the car lanes. The unpaved paths are untouched as far as clearing goes and are beat down to a rutted, icy strip by walkers and even joggers who brave it. I run studs in the winter and I still eschew riding on the unpaved paths.

My city has no bike lanes but the travel lane shrinks. My GF lives by many miles of unpaved MUP that are not plowed and used by skiers, and me when I get my MTB set up for winter.

Plowing is pretty good here on bike paths (especially in Boulder). Sometimes the paths are clear before the roads.

Bike lanes are also plowed pretty well, and not clogged up with snow.

Paul

Depends on how much money they have for the city in our state.
Minneapolis plows the bike paths the same time the roads get done.
Sidewalks must be cleared within 24 hours or face a fine.

All gravel trails here don't get touched and are used for skiing or snowmobiling.

Here in Lansing the MUPs are badly plowed or swept, meaning they pack down the snow so it's glare ice, very tricky for pedestrians and the majority of cyclists who don't have studs. My advice is to stay on the streets for winter transportation cycling, and save the trails for recreational ice biking.