Street Plowing

When Worcester has a winter storm, the City's goal is to keep the streets cleared and safe. For City crews to accomplish this goal effectively and efficiently, community cooperation is required. Residents are discouraged from parking on the street during any snow storm and are encouraged to plan ahead for alternative off-street parking.

City Streets

The following is a general description of how snow is removed from City streets.

• DPW&P may pre-treat roadways before a winter storm based on forecast conditions.
• When a snow storm begins, DPW&P responds by sanding and/or salting the main roads and bus routes. Salting serves two purposes: to keep traffic moving, and prevent the snow from bonding to the pavement.
• Snow plowing begins when snow accumulates one inch or forecasts indicate that it will. Over 350 city and private plows may be called and assigned to plow pre-determined routes. The City’s policy is to plow the full width of the street, curb to curb, during each storm.
• Once snowfall has stopped and plowing is winding down, salt trucks begin post-storm salting. Main streets and bus routes are salted to achieve bare pavement conditions. Residential streets are treated as needed based on post-storm conditions.

Calls for service should be avoided early in a storm, since it may take several hours for plows to make their way to your street. If you believe that a request for service is warranted and sufficient time has elapsed for us to have responded, please call our snow complaint number at 508-929-1300.

Driveways

• Plows are fixed and angled to the right so when plowing, snow may end up on the driveway you just shoveled.
• Clearing driveway openings is the responsibility of the property owner so you may wish to clear your driveway several times during the storm or wait until the storm and plowing operations have ended.
• Shoveling, plowing, or snow blowing the snow back into the street when clearing driveways and sidewalks is prohibited by City Ordinance.
• Plowing operations will typically continue past the point that snowfall ends. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes but plow blades cannot be lifted as they pass by a driveway.