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Why doesn't NYC use a giant snow vacuum like Montreal? Its world-famous garbage.
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 18, 2026
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ROGERIO BARBOSA/AFP via Getty Images
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 18, 2026
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New Yorkers are so filthy that snow removal techniques used in other cities just won’t cut it.
Sanitation officials in Montreal, Canada, use a giant snow vacuum that sucks up the snow from the street and deposits it in a dump truck. The gadget looks like it would come in handy in New York City, where three-week-old piles of snow are still blocking crosswalks, bike lanes and sidewalks. City sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani confirmed that NYC tried out the device 20 years ago, but ran into a familiar problem.
“We found that a lot of garbage got caught up in the machine,” Gragnani said, adding that the city’s narrow streets also presented operational challenges.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has used a different, more elaborate snow removal method involving plows that create big piles of snow, which a front loader deposits into large dump trucks. The trucks then haul the snow to large hot tubs capable of melting up to 120 tons of snow an hour. Late last month, the city deployed eight of the tubs to help get the snow off the streets.
Sanitation department spokesperson Joshua Goodman said the city still had Montreal beat.
“ I envy Montreal for their low rents, for their music scene. You know, they have decent food, but in general, I think New York City is the best in the world when it comes to snow removal,” Goodman said.
New York City gets an average snowfall of 29 inches annually, compared to 85 inches in Montreal. Unsurprisingly, Montreal takes snow removal more seriously.
New York City has 17 snow disposal sites, compared to 24 in Montreal.
Montreal also has 1,285 tools to remove snow, including “loaders, salt trucks, motor graders, tracked vehicles, snow blowers, and spreaders,” according to Justine Bérubé, a spokesperson with Velo Quebec, a prominent Montreal-based cycling advocacy group.
New York City can convert 2,200 garbage trucks into plows, along with 700 salt spreaders.
When it comes to carting away the snow, Montreal has a snow removal budget of $205.7 million Canadian dollars, which is about $149 million in U.S. dollars. New York City’s snow budget is an average of the money spent on snow removal for the past five years. That has recently worked out to between $80 million and $100 million.
When it comes to salt for the roads, the Big Apple beats Montreal. Montreal has 200,000 tons of snow salt and crushed limestone, which is stored in 30 municipal garages, while New York City keeps 350,000 tons at 42 storage sites in the five boroughs, as well as 53 sites with calcium chloride and eight sites for brine.
When it comes to cars blocking the paths of plows, Montreal has no tolerance and tows about 9,000 vehicles during each snowfall. That works out to 30,000-50,000 vehicles each year.
Gragnani said New York City is trying to keep up with the latest technology, like bringing the roads to prevent accumulation, and buying smaller equipment to clear the bike lanes.
While Montreal may have sophisticated equipment for keeping roads clear, residents have similar complaints as New Yorkers.
”Usually the first complaint is that the sidewalks is not very well cleared, and the bike path is not acceptable,” Velo Quebec CEO Jean-François Rheault said.
Tagged
new york city
sanitation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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