Snow Plowing in the Town of Lincoln

The Town of Lincoln’s primary goal is to provide the traveling public with the safest driving surface possible in
an efficient and economical way with resources available to the Town of Lincoln during snow and ice storms.
Towns are required to keep town roads “passable at all times.” See Wis. Stat. § 82.03. This includes making
sure that town roads are plowed and kept passable during the winter, this does not mean bare and dry
pavement should be expected after each snowstorm.

The Town of Lincoln averages 50 inches of snowfall annually and maintains approximately 102 lane-miles of
roadway. Plowing the town with one truck takes 12 hours on average and 6 hours with two trucks plowing.

Every snow event in the great state of Wisconsin is not the same, so every plow event is unique. The Town of
Lincoln wants to do all it can to reduce the impact on our residents by making roads as safe as possible during snowy conditions. We aim to quickly open the roads and make them safely passable to traffic. The Town of Lincoln has “typical response” standards we follow for every snow event. We have two classifications of roadways, primary and secondary, and those roads are treated differently and have different standards for
triggering dispatching onto roadways. 

Primary Roadways

Primary Roadway snow routes consist of major, non-County or State roadways that carry the most traffic within the Town, allowing emergency and business access, and keep open school bus routes. Primary roadways are plowed and/or salted during each snow event with no minimum snowfall amount that triggers us to dispatch plows after a snow event. Our goal for our primary roadways is to keep them free and clear of snow and ice after a winter weather event.

Secondary Roadways

Secondary Roadways consist of the remaining roads. There is a typical standard of a 3” snowfall event that will
trigger plows to dispatch onto secondary roadways. When there is a snowfall event of 3” or more, we will
dispatch the plows to do a full-plow on the secondary roadways as well as maintain our primary roadways.

Please keep in mind that these standards are a guideline and may vary depending on roadway temperatures,
air temps before & after the snowfall, amount of snow, day of the week and/or future forecasts.

All snowplows angle the same way, to the driver’s right, plowing snow will get pushed into the ends of the
driveways. Mailboxes must be able to withstand the normal force of required snow plowing.

Garbage/recycling cans must be removed from the right-of-way, Damage to containers is the responsibility of property owner and replacement of these containers is $75 each.

State law prohibits anyone from placing or causing to be placed upon a highway any foreign substance which
is or may be injurious to any vehicle, such as snow and ice accumulations created by plowing, shoveling, or
blowing snow onto a road or right-of-way. The penalty for violating this statute is $50 for each offense. See
Wis. Stats. §§ 346.94(5) and 346.95(3). Additionally, Wis. Stat. § 86.022 makes it a misdemeanor punishable
by fine to place any obstruction in a road ditch which will impede drainage, meaning that individuals could be cited for filling ditches with compacted snow.

Vehicles may not be parked in the roadway or right-of-way during a snowstorm preventing a plow from
completing snow removal.

Ditches are part of the right of way and grass, or sod may get rolled up during the normal process of snow
removal and is to be expected depending on weather conditions.

Residents and Businesses are not to call the Town plowing contractor to request special plowing of a road. Requests shall be made through the Town Board of Supervisors for approval to protect taxpayer spending. 

  Town Board: Jesse Jerabek (920)901-8716 David Routhieaux (920)680-5980 Tony Strnad(920) 639-2512

See link for printable document: https://storage.googleapis.com/juniper-media-library/168/2026/01/TOL Snowplowing.pdf