How we clear Ontario’s highways in winter

Responding to winter storms

Ontario handles the year-round highway maintenance of 16,900 kilometres of provincial highways and 2,880 bridges. We oversee winter maintenance work completed in 31 contract areas across the province, including four Public-Private-Partnership maintenance areas.

Before a storm

There are 153 road weather information stations across Ontario that monitor current conditions and provide site-specific forecasts. The stations help maintenance crews:

• prepare the right equipment and materials before a storm
• act once the storm arrives
• adjust their activities as conditions change

Maintenance crews patrol highways and monitor weather conditions so they can prepare the right equipment and materials.

During a storm

At the start of a winter storm, maintenance crews deploy their equipment within 30 minutes to plow, salt and sand highways. They are active 24/7 to clear highways.

After a storm

After a storm, maintenance crews continue work to clear highways and perform clean up and repair work.

Ontario’s highway standard

We have some of the highest winter maintenance standards in North America. After a storm, we commit to fully clearing snow from highways. We call this the bare pavement standard. During 2021-2022, we met the standard 95 per cent of the time. However, a severe storm may delay the clearing of the highway despite the best efforts of maintenance crews.

The target time frame to restore bare pavement depends on winter traffic volume and highway type. The table below outlines Ontario’s highway standards:

Note: ON Trans-Canada highway type is specifically for Trans-Canada Highways 11 and 17.

Review Ontario's winter maintenance performance by contract area.

Improving Ontario’s winter maintenance

We are committed to keeping our roads and highways safe this winter. We made improvements to winter maintenance activities, including:

• improving and expanding rest area infrastructure in Northern Ontario to give people more safe places to stop and rest
• installing more Road Weather Information System (RWIS) stations to provide forecasts to help maintenance crews prepare for a storm
  • this includes 24 new stations (completion fall 2022) which are under construction, with 14 of the new RWIS stations in Northern Ontario
  • we have also added 16 solar-powered mini-stations in remote locations across Northern Ontario
• increasing the proactive use of anti-icing liquids to make it easier and faster to clear highways
• adding winter features to the Ontario 511 app to help drivers plan their route, such as Track My Plow which allows drivers to track the location of snow plows on provincial highways
• requiring contractors to clear Ontario Trans-Canada highways to bare pavement within 12 hours of the end of a winter storm, four hours faster than the previous standard

Winter maintenance equipment and materials

There's no one size fits all response to winter storms. Winter maintenance crews use different maintenance equipment and materials depending on:

• weather
• highway conditions
• traffic levels

Plows

Once two centimetres of snow and slush accumulates, contractors clear the snow using:

• snow-plows
• spreaders
• combination trucks (trucks that spread salt or sand while plowing)
• tow-plows

On multi-lane highways, plowing is done in echelon. Plows are staggered across all lanes in one direction. Echelon plowing clears all lanes at once by passing a ridge of snow from one plow to the next. It’s the safest and most efficient way to remove snow on multi-lane highways.

Remember to leave plenty of space when driving behind a working snow-plow. Never pass a working snow-plow.

Materials

Salt

Salt spreading helps to melt snow and ice to prevent it from sticking to the highway. Salting also makes plowing more effective.

Sand

Sand provides traction on slippery surfaces, especially when it is too cold for salt to be effective.

Anti-icing liquid

Anti-icing liquid can be sprayed on a highway before a storm to prevent snow and ice from sticking to the highway.

Pre-wetted salt

Pre-wetted salt is regular road salt with anti-icing liquid applied before it is spread on the highway. It helps the salt stick to the highway surface and helps melt ice and snow faster to reduce the total amount of salt needed.

Contractors responsible for winter highway maintenance

We have 31 maintenance areas in place to provide winter maintenance services, including four Public-Private-Partnership maintenance areas.

Southern Ontario maintenance contractors

The Southern Ontario maintenance contract areas map shows which contractors cover areas of Southern Ontario.

Northern Ontario maintenance contractors

The Northern Ontario maintenance contract areas map shows which contractors cover areas of Northern Ontario.

Winter maintenance performance

We track and report our winter maintenance performance by year and contract area, and for Ontario overall.

Since severe weather and extreme cold can delay the clearing of highways, we also track the Winter Severity Index — a scale of 0-100 based on a combination of weather factors such as snowfall, temperature, freezing rain and others.

Performance by contract area

Select a contract area to see the winter maintenance performance over the last five years in that location.

Central region

• Durham
• Peel/Halton East
• Peel/Halton West
• Niagara
• Hamilton
• Simcoe
• Toronto
• York

Eastern region

• Bancroft
• Kingston East
• Kingston West
• Ottawa
• Carleton Place

Northeastern region 

• Cochrane
• New Liskeard
• Huntsville
• North Bay
• Sault Ste. Marie
• Sudbury

Northwestern region

• Kenora
• Thunder Bay East
• Kakabeka
• Marathon
• Thunder Bay West

West region

• Chatham
• London
• Owen Sound