Just curious how other cities compare for clearing snow on major pathways/bike lanes?

We've had two good snow events in the city so far, the first one
my pathway was cleared 24hrs after the snow
and the second(today) the plow went up 2 hours after the major snow let up :)

Our city, in its infinite benevolence, has provided the sun for clearing the snow off the MUP. Yesterday morning there was snow on the MUP. That was fun. Last night it was covered in ice. That was less fun. This morning it was still ice. I'm taking the roads home tonight.

opps just caught my mistake in the title
How DOES your city rate?
Brain Freeze!

They do not clear them at all in Anchorage. They don't even clear streets very well. The trails get used by skiers in winter, which makes for chronic bad blood between the skiers and winter bikers. And dark, icy horror for walkers.

snow removal equipment in Seattle, when we do get it (and yes sometimes we do)
is rain.

This year--so far--Saint Paul is refusing to plow even the streets. I'd be a fool to think pathways are even on the list.

Around here most trails are owned by the National Park Service, not the city. They do plow, although it takes them a few days after a storm sometimes. We only get a few snowstorms a year anyway. There is one trail near me that goes into Maryland; on the DC side it's NPS, but on the Maryland side it's the county and they don't plow. So plowing stops at the state line, which is interesting.

West of the Mississippi, the side streets are in pretty good condition, and the Greenway is practically free of ice and snow. Come to Mineapolis. Come to winter paridise.

haven't been everywhere in toronto to really see what get's plowed and what doesn't, small parks get plowed.... bike pathways that cut through valleys and along the lakeshore were never plowed last year.... I think because of the obvious practical use that skiers have for the them.
also the bike lanes on the streets are never properly cleared by either a street plow or a sidewalk plow.
so if you live in the suburbs but commute to the core of the city like I do.... it's a whole new danger game

You are supposed to clear the snow off the streets? :p

Never seen a MUP cleared. For normal streets sometimes they do a decent job. Sometimes not. Plus, it varies by suburb.

In Ottawa pathways are not cleared. Most belong to the NCC, not the city, and are outside the city's control.

Bike lanes are hit-and-miss currently. If the proposals from the Ottawa Cycling Plan get passed, not only would bike lanes by cleared, but roads with a bike lane would get priority over similar roads without.

Since I got double wide rims on my MTB with Nokian Extreme 296 spike tyres, I don´t care if the paths are cleared or not :D

When there is a lot of refrozen ice ruts on the road, I am glad that they do not plow my local bike path. I like a nice place to ride on the ice and snow. I really hope they don't start. It also connects me to lots of off road ice and snow, I don't want to ride to the woods with studs on the pavement.

I was on the Greenway earlier this week and yeah, it had been plowed, but no salt or sand. So it was like 1/2" hardpacked snow, sections of melted snow that had refrozen, and sections of bare pavement. I wasn't too impressed, but did like that I saw two plows. Unfortunatly, I didn't see any other bikes. And my skinny 23c tires didn't like the hardpack.

So I went back to the roads. Slushy thursday, totally clear today. Downtown they plowed pretty much everything but the bike paths. Maybe they plowed them, and the reason snow is left in the bike lanes is that car tires melted it everywhere else.

One thing that's kind of cool about the snow in downtown Minneapolis is that you can see how much space the bike lanes really have. It's only marked as three feet wide, but when it's covered in snow, you see that the cars really give you about six to 8 feet. Always makes me feel even better about the drivers here in paradise...

In my primary city, Lansing, the DPW does not clean sidewalks. Residents are *supposed* to do it within 48 hours. Residential streets are cleaned "eventually" if there is more than 4 inches. Bike paths are cleared once in a while, but that just makes it worse--packed and rutted ice instead of softly packed snow.

In Traverse City, which gets a LOT of snow, everything is scraped clean within a few hours. The taxes are pretty high too!

Chicago is excellent. In fact, I think they plow the paths first, then the city streets. They plow and salt the paths as soon as the storm hits. Last year, I watched them plow from my apartment. They had trucks plowing as soon as the storm broke.

What I do like about Chicago (downtown at least) is that they not only plow the snow, they remove it. So within 48 hours, it looks like it never snowed. You just can't beat that.

Koffee

In Montreal the bike lanes shut down on November 15. Those adjecent to the roads become parking areas. Those in parks never see a plow.
Jim

About 4 nights ago, I was going down a plowed ramp, which had icy patches. I didn't think that there would be ice, until my bike slid sideways. I almost went down one other place along the greenway. Still I was happy to be able to ride fairly effortlessly.

The next day I switched my back one inch tire, for a thick nokian studded torture device, and I've sailed over ice, snow pack, and through thick plow trudge. The latter, not so easily.

The path wasn't plowed, as of 1230 AM, but I'm glad that its on the Parkway's agenda, and will probably be clear by tomorrow.

Around here, the roads get plowed, and everything else gets taken over by the snowmobilers.

did