Windrow Clearing in Thunder Bay
The packed ridge the street plow leaves across your driveway is yours to deal with, by city policy. We deal with it.
Every Thunder Bay homeowner knows the moment. The driveway is clear, the storm is over, and then the street plow rolls past and seals your exit behind a thigh-high ridge of grey compacted snow. The city’s own policy says its crews will not remove it. Thunder Bay Snow Removal built a service around that sentence.
The Ridge Is Policy, Not Bad Luck
The city plows more than 1,900 lane-kilometres of road, and its plows push snow to the edges, across every driveway mouth on the street. Municipal policy is unusually direct about what happens next: windrows across driveways will not be cleared by city crews, residents are responsible for their driveways including the portion on city property, and the boulevard is the street’s designated snow storage.
There is even a small acknowledgement of how heavy that burden is: the city points low-income seniors toward a tax credit meant to help with the cost of clearing the end of the driveway. The ridge is real enough to have its own line in the tax system.
Why It Cannot Just Be Shovelled
Windrow snow is road snow. Compacted by the blade, mixed with ice and grit, and heavier per shovelful than anything that falls from the sky. Cardiologists get quoted about this stuff for a reason, and the freeze cycle makes it worse: a windrow left overnight in a cold snap sets into something a shovel bounces off.
Machines do not care. A blade or blower opens in minutes what would cost a person an ugly hour, and squares the approach so the car exits straight rather than through a gap.
Timed to the City’s Schedule, Not the Sky’s
Here is the operational trick that makes this service work: the ridge does not arrive with the storm. Priority routes get plowed first, from two a.m. Residential streets wait for ten centimetres of accumulation, and clearing them all can run up to seventy-two hours. Your windrow shows up whenever your street’s turn comes.
So our seasonal routes carry a return pass keyed to the municipal plow. Cleared after the storm, opened again after the city has been by. On a seasonal contract that second visit is simply part of the plan, and it is included on every snow removal for seniors route for the reasons above. If all you ever need is the ridge handled, storm-by-storm clearing covers the one-off call.
What's Included
- The end-of-driveway ridge removed, not driven over
- Return passes timed to the city plow, not just the storm
- Included automatically on seasonal routes
- One-off openings for the morning you are walled in
- The heaviest lifting of the winter, off your shovel
Other Services We Offer in Thunder Bay
Windrow Clearing Questions
Why will the city not clear the ridge its own plow made?
Thunder Bay's policy is explicit that windrows across driveways will not be cleared by city crews, and that residents are responsible for their driveway including the part crossing city property. The boulevard is treated as the street's snow storage. Agree with it or not, that is the rule, and it makes the ridge the homeowner's problem by design.
Why is windrow snow so much worse than the rest of the driveway?
Because a road plow does not push fluffy snow. It delivers a dense mix of compacted snow, ice chunks, and road sand, rolled tight by the blade and the traffic before it. Left overnight, it sets hard, and in a cold snap it is closer to rubble than to snow. It is the number-one thing older homeowners should not be lifting.
The storm ended, you cleared my driveway, then the city plow came. Now what?
That sequence is normal, and it is exactly why windrow work is timed to the municipal plow rather than the snowfall. Route customers get a return pass after the street plow has been through. The city typically starts residential streets only after ten centimetres has accumulated and can take up to seventy-two hours to finish them, so that return pass can land a day or more after the storm.
Can I call you just to open the end of my driveway?
Yes. It is the most common one-off call we get, usually from someone who cleared everything themselves and then met the ridge. We open the approach, square the edges, and leave you an exit instead of a wall.
Get a Free Windrow Clearing Quote
Winter routes are planned in the fall and fill up fast. Lock in your driveway now with a free quote.