The City of Buffalo will arm itself with an increased budget and an increase in equipment to tackle this winter's snow removal, Mayor Sean Ryan announced Thursday.
The 2026-2027 winter snow plan is headlined by a drastic budget increase — from $580,000 to $2.7 million — for contracted snow removal as well as additional front-end loaders and dump trucks to help haul away snow.
"That's actually one of the most single important things any municipality in our region can do to prepare for extreme winter storms," said Deputy Mayor Ben Swanekamp. "While snowfall rates exceed three inches per hour, it is impossible to keep up with them with traditional plows. And so municipalities, the county, the state have to rely on contractors plus our own equipment of using dump trucks and high lifts to scoop and haul the snow out."
The city also has purchased five John Deere tractors equipped with large blowers, which are small enough to maneuver around Buffalo's narrowest side streets.
Other highlights of the plan include:
- Upgraded tracking on plow progress through the city's mapping system with GPS data
- Two additional salt supply agreements to obtain at least 25,000 tons of salt
- Additional personnel and tow trucks to address vehicles blocking snow-clearing operations
- Maintenance and clearing of protected bike lanes and off-street bike paths
The snow plan also formalizes contingency plans with state and county partners for snow removal and emergency management in the event the city is overwhelmed during a major storm. It's a lesson Swanekamp said was learned during the 2022 Christmas Blizzard.
"Divide the city into three sectors, with each municipality or agency having responsibility for clearing those zones," he said. "That's how we actually finally got the city dugout at the '22 blizzard. So in the event of a National Weather Service purple extreme storm, we would initiate conversations with our partners to initiate that contractor divvying up of the city."
Staffing levels of the city's Department of Public Works is an important factor in managing severe weather, but Swanekamp admits he's not happy where it's at.
"Staffing is not where I would love it to be," he said, noting union negotiations are ongoing. "We'll continue to try and attract and recruit at our current pay scale. Thankfully, as far as plow drivers go, we currently do have a sufficient supply to operate the amount of apparatuses that we have available at this time. But if we're able to get up to our optimal fleet size of 34 plus vehicles, it's going to be imperative that we're able to attract and compete."
Ryan also said 10 new vehicles are on order to add to the plow fleet — six of which could be available during the latter half of the season but with a long-term goal of operating a fleet of 34 trucks.
Mayoral administration officials will meet with the Buffalo Common Council over the coming weeks to discuss the plan.
