Duluth Considers Changing Policy Requiring City to Clear Sidewalk Snow

Ordinance now requires city crews to clear snow plowed onto sidewalks

DULUTH, Minn. – If a plow pushes show onto shoveled sidewalks, it’s the City of Duluth’s responsibility to clear it away, but city officials say it’s impossible to clear all that snow.

City crews don’t clear every sidewalk a plow covers in snow. They never have.

But according to officials, Duluth is the only city they know of with an ordinance giving the city that responsibility.

Before 2014 the city cent crews to clear sidewalk snow in places where they got individual complaints.

They would clear the side of a block no matter how lightly traveled the sidewalk was.

But doing that on every street in Duluth is impossible and is something the city has never tried to do.

Now, a proposed ordinance would change that rule and make sidewalk snow removal the property owner’s responsibility.

The city would only assist in clearing that snow on safe routes to school and other high-priority areas.

“The disconnect between the policy and reality foments conflict and misunderstandings between citizens and the city, citizens who read their code and see here’s what the city ought to do,” said Jim Filby Williams, Duluth’s Director of Public Administration.

The city continues to get calls from residents demanding their sidewalks be cleared but they haven’t responded to those calls for the past three years.

The proposed ordinance change will head to the Duluth City Council for consideration at their October 8th meeting.