Please park on the even side of street (or off street, if possible); Canceled trash pickup to be rescheduled

Plowing & Snow Emergency Information

The Streets Division will be plowing every street in Madison tonight, starting around 10:00pm and a snow emergency will be in effect. 

More details about our plowing operation can be found in the Snow Plow Update on the winter website (or your inbox if you subscribe to receive it directly).

Citywide plowing takes around 12 to 14 hours to complete once it starts. It is normal procedure to wait until the storm is at or near its end before beginning this huge operation that involves pretty much every available person from the Streets Division we can muster, people from Parks and Engineering, and also heavy equipment contractors brought in to help the Streets Division. Around 150 trucks will all be working to push back snow.

All areas of Madison are assigned plows, and all start at the same time. It takes a long time to push snow from around 1,800 miles of pavement – even with 150 trucks working at it. 

The snow emergency means that everyone, including people who park in the snow emergency zone, has to follow alternate side parking rules.  

Alternate side parking rules are enforced from 1:00am to 7:00am.  If you do not follow the rules, during a declared snow emergency you can receive a ticket of $60. And if you are towed, there is an additional tow fee of $115.  

Tonight, if you must park on the street, you should park your car on the even side of the street from 1:00am to 7:00am. The best choice, if you have the opportunity, would be to remove the vehicle from the street. The fewer obstacles in the road for the plow drivers the better!

Trash & Recycling Information for People with a Tuesday Pickup Day

As you may know, trash & recycling pickup for today (January 9) was cancelled due to the severe weather predictions. We will begin making up for the cancelled pickup tomorrow, January 10.  

Residents with a Tuesday pickup day should put their carts out for collection by 6:30am on January 10 –do not put the carts in the street. Carts in the street are an obstruction for plows just like parked cars. Put the carts in your driveway apron or on a cleared area of the terrace.

If you have a Tuesday pickup, and your cart isn’t emptied on Wednesday – don’t fret! We may not be able to get to everyone on that day. We’re going to try, but whatever carts we can’t get to on Wednesday, we will come back for on Thursday, January 11 so just leave the carts out for collection.   

If you have a Tuesday pickup and you got the cart out on time for your make-up pickup, and Thursday 3:00pm rolls around and you still haven’t gotten your cart emptied, please give the Streets Division a call so we can work to get this situation fixed (608-266-4681 for the west side, 608-246-4532 for the east side).

Stay safe!