Crews have begun hauling away snow from some neighbourhood and arterial streets, a step that officials say hasn’t been necessary since 2010.

According to Toronto's superintendent of road operations Mark Mills, about 15 to 30 crews at a time are being dispatched to streets which are considered unpassable for large emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks.

He said that the crews will be using large snow blowers and front-end loaders to transfer snow from the side of the streets to the back of a truck. The snow will then be hauled away to city-owned facilities for storage until it melts.

The work is expected to continue 24 hours a day for the next five to seven days, according to Mills.

“What we did after the storm we just had on Wednesday was send some our staff out to assess the roads and they determined that emergency vehicles probably could not get down some of these roads safely,” he told reporters on Saturday afternoon. “Up until that point we were confident that emergency vehicles could use most of the local roads in a safe manner. That is why we initiated this. It’s based on safety.”

Mills said that the goal behind the work is to clear at least one side of each street that is being targeted.

He said that crews are posting signs warning drivers about the impending work 24 to 48 hours in advance.

In the event that parked vehicles block crews from accessing the snowbanks, Mills said that police will be arranging for “friendly tows,” wherein vehicles are moved to a nearby street to accommodate the work without any fine or charge being issued to their owner.

“So far there have been zero friendly tows but that could change,” he said on Saturday morning.

According to Environment Canada data, the city has received about 128 centimetres of snow this winter season, 107 centimetres of which has come over the last six weeks alone. That total is more than the 105 centimetres of snow that the city typically receives in an entire winter.

Mills could not provide an estimate for the cost of trucking away snow from some streets but said that it will be in “the millions; not thousands” of dollars.

He said that the city has spent about $15 million of its $87 million snow removal budget since January.