Why doesn't NYC use a giant snow vacuum like Montreal? Its world-famous garbage.

"Sanitation officials in Montreal, Canada, use a giant snow vacuum that sucks up the snow from the street and deposits it in a dump truck. The gadget looks like it would come in handy in New York City, where three-week-old piles of snow are still blocking crosswalks, bike lanes and sidewalks. City sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani confirmed that NYC tried out the device 20 years ago, but ran into a familiar problem."

""We found that a lot of garbage got caught up in the machine," Gragnani said, adding that the city's narrow streets also presented operational challenges. Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration has used a different, more elaborate snow removal method involving plows that create big piles of snow, which a front loader deposits into large dump trucks. The trucks then haul the snow to large hot tubs capable of melting up to 120 tons of snow an hour."

Montreal uses a giant snow vacuum that sucks up snow from streets and deposits it into dump trucks, but garbage frequently clogs the machine and narrow streets make operation difficult in New York. New York clears snow by plowing into piles, using front loaders to load dump trucks that haul snow to large hot tubs that can melt up to 120 tons per hour; eight tubs were recently deployed. Montreal averages 85 inches of snow annually, has 24 disposal sites and 1,285 removal tools. New York averages 29 inches, has 17 disposal sites, can convert 2,200 garbage trucks into plows and operates 700 salt spreaders.

Read at Gothamist