City looking to sign up people for Windrow Assistance Service

By Lethbridge Herald on September 3, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

Even though snow is not in the forecast any time soon, the City of Lethbridge is getting ready for winter operations and asking snow route residents to prepare as well. 

Juliane Ruck, transportation operations manager, said Tuesday that residents who live on a snow route will begin to receive postcards with information about snow routes and the Windrow Assistance Service (WAS) this month. 

“We wanted to give people time to call in and sign up and look at all their options as our signup deadline is Oct. 10,” said Ruck. 

She said the postcards contain information on snow routes and parking restrictions to avoid parking tickets and ensure streets are plowed when snow routes are declared. 

Ruck added that the postcards will be hand-delivered by City staff and their partners at Ability Resource Centre.

“We are in our fourth year testing this program. Originally, we started with a small number of kilometres where people were on snow routes, where over 6,000 households were impacted,” said Ruck. 

She said last season they created the Windrow Assistance Service and unfortunately, they only had one snow event where snow routes were activated, making it very hard to assess the program’s feedback. 

“When we presented to council in June, our recommendation was to try this for one more year and hopefully we have more snow events where we activate snow routes and can test our Windrow Assistance Service,” said Ruck. 

She said this will help them gain feedback about it that they can relate to council next spring. 

Annual registration for WAS is required, even for those who signed up for the program last year. Early sign up helps make sure the service is ready to go for all subscribers before winter arrives.   

The City introduced WAS to help balance the financial benefits with community needs as an amendment made to Phase 2 of the Snow and Ice Control Changes. 

“For everyone who is on a snow route, on our postcard there is a prize draw that we started this year, where people can win winter readiness snow kit for their car,” said Ruck. 

To learn more about the City’s overall winter operations, visit lethbridge.ca/snow.