Winter Travel

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The Snow and Ice Control program enables Edmontonians to experience a safe and liveable winter city, ensuring residents can access spaces, services, facilities and transportation networks no matter how they travel.

Service levels show the priorities of how clearing occurs. Roadways and active pathways each have dedicated teams and specialized equipment to deliver service that does not compete with each other.

A parking ban can be declared with 8 hours notice. When a parking ban is activated, the Roadways Snow Clearing Map displays the clearing status of each roadway.

Parking Ban Notices

Subscribe to receive parking ban, snow clearing and street sweeping notifications.

Roadways Snow Clearing Map

See where the plows and snow clearing equipment are during and after snow events.

Active Pathways Snow Clearing Map

Includes priority levels of active pathways and the bike network.

Community Sandboxes

The Community Sandbox Program provides free, dry sand at designated locations for use on icy sidewalks and walkways.

Winter Cycling

Snow doesn’t have to mean the end of bike season. When riding your bike in the winter plan ahead to keep warm and safe.

Residential Sidewalk Snow and Ice

Clear sidewalks of snow and ice around your property as soon as possible to keep everyone moving safely.

Snow Storage

Snow removed from roads is taken to one of Edmonton's snow storage facilities.

Citywide Winter Parking Ban: How It Works

Edmonton is a winter city with unpredictable weather. When it snows, the City’s Snow and Ice Control team is ready to clear the roadways, but they need space to do the job effectively. It’s important to know what to do when a parking ban is called and the differences between Phase 1 and Phase 2 parking bans and changes implemented during the 2025-2026 season.

How We Work

When it snows, our crews are out 24/7 to make Edmonton a safe and liveable winter city.

The City has approximately 700 people working on the Roads and Active Pathways crews. These are 2 separate operational teams with dedicated staff and equipment, to provide service levels on their own sets of inventory as they maintain more than 12,000 km of roadways and 500 km of active pathways.

The first response to a snowfall is to apply traction material, depending on conditions, to main roads and bus routes. Plowing begins once snow has accumulated on the main roads and the weather forecast calls for continued snowfall. See the Snow and Ice infographic for more details.

On most roadways, snow is placed in boulevards or left on roads. In culs-de-sac or roadways where snow cannot be placed in boulevards, the snow is stacked and removed during a clearing operation. Clearing occurs by a separate team and may take place at a later date. Snow that gets removed from roads is trucked to 1 of 4 snow storage sites. No snow is placed in fields or parks due to environmental regulations.

Sand and Salt Use

The City sands and salts roads and walkways as needed. The sand mix contains sand, salt, rock chips (being phased out) and calcium chloride brine. The specific ratios vary based on current weather conditions. Salt accounts for 12-18% of the materials applied to roads annually, making Edmonton one of the lowest salt users among major Canadian cities.

The dark colour of street sand is due to the mix of sand, pink salt (containing potassium chloride and iron) and liquid calcium chloride. It does not impact effectiveness.

The Community Sandbox Program provides free, dry sand at designated locations for residential use on icy sidewalks and walkways. For residential sidewalks, the City provides free sand for residential use.

Windrows

A windrow is a pile of snow created by plowing equipment.

The City collects windrows from main arterial and collector roads, Business Improvement Areas, bus routes, windrow-free zones and culs-de-sac when necessary.

In neighbourhoods, windrows are generally not removed, but crews try to minimize their height at driveway entrances. The City clears windrows that cross driveways and are higher than 30 centimetres (12 inches or 1 foot), opening a single lane width (approximately 3.5 metres). Residents are responsible for clearing the rest.

If snow from windrows spills onto sidewalks and impacts their use, or if windrows are blocking sidewalks or causing a safety concern, residents should call 311. Crews will be dispatched within 1-2 days to clear them.

If a windrow is left in front of a driveway and is higher than 30 centimetres, residents should call 311. Equipment to clear these may follow a few hours behind the blading crews.

Reporting An Issue

To report an issue and send a service request to the City, using the 311 app or calling 311 is the most effective method. Service requests through 311 are entered into a queue, prioritized, actioned and tracked. Some notifications are “closed” if crews have already been dispatched to action the concern identified in the ticket or if the service request is a duplicate ticket.

Annual Snow and Ice Control Report

The Annual Snow and Ice Control Report is published following each winter season and provides performance details on the past season.

Contact Us

Winter Maintenance

Telephone	In Edmonton: 311 Outside Edmonton: 780-442-5311

TTY	780-944-5555