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Just inquired and received a response on any potential trail plowing this winter:

"I've been asked by the County Manager to respond to your question about the status of Arlington’s snow operations plan vis a vis trail clearing. As you stated, staff did prepare a proposal last winter for the County Manager’s consideration that would expand the County’s snow clearing operations to include 13 miles of high-priority trails. Generally, the proposal was to fund, for a single winter, a test program that would have paid a contractor approximately $10,000 per snow event to clear 13 miles of priority trails. (During a typical winter – if there ever is such a thing – snow clearing operations are mobilized about ten times.) Thus this proposal would have reflected an approximately $100,000 budget commitment."

"Given the County’s financial status at that time, it was decided that this could not be accommodated in the FY2014 budget proposal. Nonetheless, the proposal will be raised again during this next fiscal year’s budget discussions, taking place in the coming months. If the budget change request is accepted, I will be sure to brief the Bicycle Advisory Committee accordingly."

If you agree that Arlington's Trails are important transportation corridors and should therefore be cleared of snow, please contact the County Manager and County Board to express your support. At best, perhaps this can be funded from the current fiscal year's closeout funds. At worst, let's start the pressure now to get this included in next fiscal year's budget.

Trail plowing has been requested by Arlington's Bicycle Advisory Commission for years and was the subject of several blog posts and news articles last Fall.