Snow plowing in Wakefield and Lynnfield, MA: reserve your season pass

Plowing a driveway in Wakefield and Lynnfield

Wakefield

Wakefield is a town of about 7.9 square miles and 27,000 people, built around Lake Quannapowitt and Crystal Lake. Its neighborhoods include Greenwood, Woodville, Lakeside, Montrose and the West and East Sides. The Highway Division page lists about 250 lane miles of road to plow, and local contractors help the DPW fleet during storms.

Parking works differently from most nearby towns. Wakefield no longer has an all-night winter parking ban. Instead it can start a ban during snow and other weather emergencies, and it announces that through its Everbridge e-alerts. If a ban is on, cars that block plows can be ticketed and towed, so a driveway is the safest place to leave a car. When the town plows, it pushes snow to the side of the street, and a bank forms across the end of each driveway. The town asks residents to take cars off the street during winter storms, and the less room the plows have along the curb, the more snow gets pushed up against it.

On sidewalks, the town bylaw puts a 24-hour duty on commercial property and multi-family buildings, and the Highway Division page says the clock starts after the storm ends. It does not cover single-family homes. If you own a larger multi-family building, that rule applies to you, so mention the sidewalk when you ask for a price. Tell us the slope and width of your drive too, because streets near the lakes and the hills on the west side are not all alike.

Lynnfield

Lynnfield is a mostly residential town of about 10.5 square miles and about 13,000 people. A 2023 town planning presentation lists about 4,800 homes, the large majority single-family. That means driveways are often longer and wider than in the dense cities nearby, and each one takes real time to clear after a plow passes. The town has about 70 miles of public roads, or about 250 lane miles.

The DPW also clears 19.27 miles of sidewalks, with school zones and major roads first. Plows go by many driveways on long roads, and each pass leaves a bank of packed snow at the end of the drive. On a long driveway that is only the last step, because the snow in the rest of the drive still has to go somewhere. The sidewalk rule is short: owners must keep the sidewalk in front of their property clear of snow and ice.

The town has a permanent overnight ban from November 1 to April 1. Nobody may park on either side of any street from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. In a declared snow emergency, no one may park on town roads at all except public safety and DPW vehicles, and cars can be towed at the owner's expense. Plan to keep your cars in the driveway during those periods. The town also bans moving snow from private land onto streets and sidewalks, with fines of $20 to $50 per day. Tell us if you have a long drive or a sidewalk on your lot when you ask for a price.