By Nora Kowalczyk
BUFFALO — Buffalo is heading into winter with nearly five times as much money for private snow-removal contractors as it had last year, five new compact tractors for its narrowest side streets and a promise to plow every residential street at least once within 24 hours of a snowfall.
What it won’t have when the first big storm arrives is a full fleet of its own plows.
Mayor Sean Ryan’s administration released its 2026-27 Winter Snow Plan on Thursday. The plan raises the city’s contracted snow-removal budget from $580,000 to $2.7 million, according to Buffalo Toronto Public Media, and pays for more front-end loaders and dump trucks to haul snow off streets rather than just push it aside.
“Buffalo residents deserve reliable service on their streets, and being better prepared for winter is a big part of fixing the basics,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement reported by WKBW. “We are putting more resources behind snow removal and investing in equipment tailored to our city’s needs.”
What’s in the plan
Beyond the contractor money, the plan includes:
- Five John Deere tractors fitted with large snowblowers, small enough to work Buffalo’s tightest side streets.
- GPS-based tracking of plow progress on the city’s online map.
- Two additional salt supply agreements covering at least 25,000 tons.
- More personnel and tow trucks to clear cars that block plows.
- Maintenance and clearing of protected bike lanes and off-street bike paths.
- A pilot of two new kinds of plow blades, including spring-loaded segmented “REACT” blades meant to scrape closer to uneven pavement, WKBW reported.
Under the plan, crews clear major roads, emergency routes and bus routes first, then move into neighborhoods, with a goal of at least one pass on every residential street within 24 hours.
Deputy Mayor Ben Swanekamp said the hauling money matters most when lake-effect bands stall over the city.
“That’s actually one of the most single important things any municipality in our region can do to prepare for extreme winter storms,” Mr. Swanekamp said, according to BTPM. “While snowfall rates exceed three inches per hour, it is impossible to keep up with them with traditional plows.”
A lesson from 2022
The plan also puts on paper the arrangement that finally dug the city out after the deadly Christmas 2022 blizzard: carving Buffalo into zones handled by the city, Erie County and the state.
“Divide the city into three sectors, with each municipality or agency having responsibility for clearing those zones,” Mr. Swanekamp said. “That’s how we actually finally got the city dug out at the ’22 blizzard.”
He said the city would open those conversations with its partners if the National Weather Service issues its most severe, purple-coded storm warning.
The plow gap
The plan arrives with a shortfall the administration has acknowledged for months. In February, Mr. Ryan said the city had only 14 working plows of the roughly 40 he said it needed, with most of the rest stuck in repair shops, WKBW reported at the time. He blamed years of underinvestment, a mechanic shortage and the city’s stalled borrowing.
“The City of Buffalo has failed to invest in itself,” Mr. Ryan said then.
Eight months later, Mr. Swanekamp told WKBW the city has 14 or 15 plows ready, with more being set up. The 10 new plow vehicles on order will not be on the street for the start of winter because of manufacturing lead times.
“Worst-case scenario, they’ll come in February. Hopefully, they will come a little earlier, so maybe January or late December,” he said.
BTPM reported that six of the 10 could be available in the second half of the season, and that the long-term goal is a fleet of 34 trucks.
Staffing is the other constraint. Contract talks with city unions are ongoing.
“Staffing is not where I would love it to be,” Mr. Swanekamp said. “We’ll continue to try and attract and recruit at our current pay scale.” He said the city has enough plow drivers for the equipment it has now, but would need to “attract and compete” to staff a full fleet.
Months past the deadline
The plan also comes more than 200 days after the April 1 deadline for submitting it, WKBW noted. Mr. Swanekamp said snow removal has been a priority since the administration took office.
“Not a week has gone by that I haven’t had some meeting where we’re investigating how to improve snow removal services,” he said. “We’ve been working on iterating on this for a long time, and it’s going to be ready before the council, well before any snow hits the ground.”
Administration officials are expected to walk the Common Council through the plan in the coming weeks. Council Member Rasheed Wyatt pressed Public Works for a fleet update last winter. Whether the contractor money can make up for a short plow fleet will likely be tested before the new trucks arrive.
Residents can sign up for the city’s emergency alerts through BUFFALERT and read the city’s announcement on buffalony.gov.
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