With snow blanketing cottage country north of Toronto, city officials said Thursday they are now ready for its arrival here.

"It's that time of year -- winter's coming," said Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong, who heads the public works committee.

However, he conceded that any potential city labour dispute could complicate matters early in the new year.

The city's contracts with its two largest unions expire on Jan. 1. The earliest date for a strike or lockout is Jan. 19, which would be in the heart of winter.

But Minnan-Wong told reporters at a news conference that "we're in a pretty good spot," because about 75 per cent of the city's snow-removal work is already contracted to outside firms.

"We believe that we will have the capacity to deal with the snowfall," he said, but added, "There will be some service-level impact."

The city didn't make it clear which 25 per cent of the work is done by city crews.

"We're still in the process of developing a plan in the event of a labour disruption," Minnan-Wong said.

The city's priorities are to clear main roads for emergency and TTC vehicles, he said in a news release.

Local roads are lower in priority. Snow on local roads usually isn't cleared until about 14 to 16 hours after the storm ends, he said.

Gary Welsh, general manager of the city's transportation department, said local roads won't be forgotten in any labour dispute.
 
The city has the following equipment available:

  • 600 snow plows
  • 300 sidewalk plows
  • 200 salt trucks

The city plans to send out salting trucks when a storm is imminent. Once five centimetres of snow falls, it dispatches plow trucks to the main arteries to start clearing snow.

If snowfall accumulations reach eight centimetres, plows are sent to local roads.

While much of Toronto has mechanical snow clearing, homeowners and businesses in the central core must clear ice and snow from their sidewalks within 12 hours after a snowfall has ended.

Failure to do so can result in a total fine of up to $125.

Besides roadways, broken watermains are a common winter infrastructure problem.

The city said it is spending $106 million per year to improve the watermain distribution system. Older pipes are more vulnerable to the natural freeze-thaw cycle that causes breaks.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney