Snow tests Minneapolis’ sidewalk shovelling experiment

Charlotte Ipsen, a longtime north Minneapolis resident who is 84 this winter, usually relies on a kindhearted neighbour to shovel her sidewalk, as many senior Minnesotans do. But the neighbour is getting older and has disabilities that cause him to limp behind his snowblower. With money tight — Ipsen’s health insurance, food and taxes all seem to be going up dramatically — she’d be hard-pressed to hire someone to replace him, she said. So when she heard about a new city-funded program through the Harrison Neighbourhood Association that would assign young people to help seniors shovel their sidewalks, Ipsen raised her hand to be a test case. The season’s first major snowfall came last month, and on its tail was the neighbourhood shoveling team. “I really so support this program, so support it, and I just think it’s such a darn good idea,” Ipsen said.

This winter, half a dozen neighbourhood associations across Minneapolis are participating in a city pilot to clear snow and ice from sidewalks in front of elderly and disabled residents’ homes, as well as select pedestrian thoroughfares. The pilot is in its second season, and while relatively puny snowfalls last year limited data collection, this winter’s more robust accumulation events are offering a better chance to explore the need for municipal sidewalk-clearing and the effectiveness of, say, equipping neighbourhood groups with snowblowers to do it. Traditionally, the city clears streets and private owners must clear sidewalks adjacent to their properties or risk getting fined. Most property owners — 96% since the city started tracking — comply. But others struggle for various reasons, and when sidewalks aren’t cleared they can get dangerous for walking and unnavigable to wheelchairs. The idea of having the city take over sidewalk shoveling has been floating around since at least 2018, when the city funded a study looking at what other North American cities have tried.

It gained renewed interest during the snowy winter of 2022-23, when the City Council asked staff to provide a rough estimate of how much it would cost the city to clear nearly 2,000 miles of sidewalks in the “Pedestrian Priority Network,” a grid of streets people frequently walk. They were quoted $116.2 million over the first three years and $40.6 million every year thereafter: numbers that council members and Mayor Jacob Frey balked at. At the same time, city staff came up with pilot ideas to target the greatest need, including shoveling for seniors and snow case workers for properties that are repeatedly noncompliant, such as rental housing. The city allocated nearly $600,000 to test those ideas, but only spent $230,000 last year due to unusually light snowfall. In a June 2025 report, the project coordinator for the snow and ice pilot programs, Ethan Van Offelen, said giving grants to neighbourhood organisations to do the work proved particularly cost-effective and was appreciated by the older residents who benefitted. “I was very honored to get to service residents of Minneapolis in this way this last year,” Van Offelen said. Frey did not recommend continued funding for the snow-clearing pilots in his proposed 2026 budget, but the City Council amended the budget to reinstate the $600,000 to continue testing for another year.

The friction between the mayor and the council’s progressive majority on this issue reflects deeper philosophical differences over funding priorities. Municipal sidewalk shoveling is part of the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America platform, and championed by the council’s democratic socialist majority and minority leaders: Robin Wonsley and Aisha Chughtai. “The Mayor believed it was important to focus limited resources on proven core services rather than expanding an untested pilot too quickly,” Ally Peters, the mayor’s spokesperson, provided in a statement. “At the same time, the Mayor remains open to continued evaluation of the program as more data becomes available and winter conditions return to normal, and to reassessing future investments based on demonstrated need, effectiveness, and fiscal responsibility.” During the budget markup process, moderate council members who allied with Frey echoed his opposition to extending the pilots because they believed it would detract from existing snow-clearing services.

In the past, the Public Works department has used its discretion to shift money from the snow and ice pilots to maintain core services as needed. This winter, participating neighbourhood associations are McKinley Community, Webber-Camden Neighbourhood Organization, Standish-Ericsson Neighbourhood Association, Whittier Alliance, Fulton Neighbourhood Association, Bottineau Neighbourhood Association and Harrison Neighbourhood Association. Their city contracts range from about $5,000 to $20,000.

The groups submitted proposals that included a mix of paid work and volunteer opportunities. It’s unclear when city leaders will decide whether the pilots have been successful enough to formalise as permanent programs, but another report evaluating this winter’s outcomes will likely come at the end of the snow season.

How’s it going so far? So far this winter, participating neighbourhood associations are reporting mixed experiences. Anna Schmitz, executive director of Whittier Alliance, said participation was imbalanced, with about 10 households requesting help and more than 140 people eager to do so. It wasn’t that surprising, considering the neighbourhood is made up of many younger renters. In the small Northeast neighbourhood of Bottineau, Elyssa Eull is the only snow clearer on call for a handful of households with residents older than 65, as well as parts of Lowry Avenue and 2nd Street, where a span of vacant properties meant the path to the bus stop was perennially poorly shoveled.

“It’s really unfortunate for people who take public transit or have to walk anywhere, because it’s obviously impossible,” said Eull, who runs California Street Farm in the growing season and earns part-time winter income through the snow-clearing pilot. In the Harrison neighbourhood of north Minneapolis, snow-clearing captain Marcus Kar manages a team of young men who are paid $30 an hour. Kar is also a grower and a former mentor for the urban farming nonprofit Youth Farm. He said he struggles to comprehend the politics behind the snow removal pilot because he sees obvious benefits in youth taking a stake in a gentrified neighbourhood where many people don’t own their homes. “To see people actually waking up and being present in something as simple as removing snow, that’s a win for not just for this neighbourhood and the residents and the people that use these sidewalks,” he said. “What this opportunity does, it gives people the energy, the morale, the feeling that they’re working towards something, and they can pay a bill, and they can know their neighbours.”