Why are certain streets cleared of snow first? City councillors say they don’t know.

Red no parking signs in Ottawa on Feb. 18, 2025. (Tyler Fleming/CTV News Ottawa)

Two Ottawa city councillors have issued an open letter to city staff, asking for more information about which streets are prioritized for snow-clearing efforts.

Ottawa received 69 centimetres of snow between Feb. 12 and Feb. 17 in back-to-back snowstorms. City officials say the snow-removal process has taken longer than usual due to the sheer volume of snow that fell in a short period.

The letter—issued Monday on Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster’s website—says councillors have received “a high volume of correspondence from residents” about the city’s snow-clearing efforts, including questions about why certain streets are done before others.

“We know that city staff have a network-wide understanding of how best to accomplish the overall clean-up, but we are not privy to that,” the letter says. “We have been unable to provide an explanation to the many notes we’ve received asking why X is proceeding before Y street, and we cannot easily dismiss the concerns expressed.”

On Friday, the City of Ottawa said more than 90,000 cubic metres of snow had been removed since the storms but warned the cleanup would take “weeks.”

The city lifted its “severe weather event” declaration Monday morning, a week after the second storm had ended.

“The Roads and Parking Services team is continuing their work to maintain the City’s sidewalks, roads and the winter cycling network, and to restore them to normal conditions,” the city said.

The open letter, which Troster said on social media was co-signed by Kichissippi Ward Coun. Jeff Leiper, asks why certain arterial roads are cleared before others.

Troster posted a video to the social media site Bluesky saying she does not know the answer to the question of why some streets are cleared before others.

“I don’t understand why wide roads like Albert and Slater were cleared before major bus routes like Somerset and Gladstone,” she said. “And I don’t understand why Centretown residents are being told to wait so long for residential snow-clearing, when that’s not the case for other neighbourhoods.”

Area roads manager for the City of Ottawa, Bryden Denyes, said Friday that the city has 20 to 25 different crews clearing snow during the day, with another 30 crews each night doing snow removal.

“There are streets, like mains, we can only do during the nighttime and, typically, residential streets during the daytime so there is a process that they go through to try and pick it out,” Denyes said.

“Our main goal is to really look at the ones that have the most encroachment of snow, really focus on those and build our program out from there.”

Troster thanked workers who are clearing the snow for their efforts.

“No matter the reasons they’re sent to one street versus another, we are thankful for the many hours they’ve put in with more still to come, and we absolutely recognize the importance that good management has played in getting us to this point,” the letter said.

“At least we’re not Toronto, right?”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Josh Pringle