The Montreal Snow Dump That Took 300,000 Truckloads - Where Does a City Put That Much Snow?

Описание: Every winter, Montreal removes snow from 10,000 kilometers of city streets. That's 300,000 truckloads of snow that has to go somewhere. But where do you put enough snow to bury a skyscraper? This is the incredible story of the world's largest urban snow removal operation.
🔍 THE STORY:
Montreal receives an average of 210 centimeters of snow every year, making it the snowiest major city in North America. With roughly 800,000 vehicles on the island and millions of residents expecting clear streets every morning, the city faces an impossible challenge: where do you dump mountains of snow when you run out of space?
The operation is staggering in scale. Montreal employs 3,000 workers during peak winter months, operates hundreds of snowplows and dump trucks, and spends $179.7 million annually on snow removal. Every winter night, these crews clear, load, and transport 300,000 truckloads of snow away from neighborhoods across the city.
But the destination has changed dramatically over time. For decades, Montreal simply dumped everything into the St. Lawrence River, creating massive pollution from road salt and gravel. By the 1980s, environmental concerns forced the city to find alternatives. Today, Montreal uses designated snow disposal sites and landscape dumps, where the snow melts naturally without contaminating the river.
The logistics are mind-boggling. The city is divided into 83 districts, each with dedicated crews and equipment. Parking bans are announced with sirens, cars are towed by the thousands, and streets must be passable within 8 hours and fully cleared within 72 hours by city mandate.
This documentary reveals the hidden infrastructure of winter, the evolution from river dumping to modern disposal sites, and why Montreal's snow removal operation is studied by cold-weather cities worldwide. Discover how a city moves the equivalent of 50,000 Olympic swimming pools of snow every single winter.
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💬 Comment: How does your city handle snow removal?