Highland Park is 55116, one of the three ZIP codes the city's own commissioned research identified as alley captain country. If your garage opens onto an alley here, nobody municipal is coming for it — and has not, ever.
Saint Paul's published position is unambiguous: the city “has never plowed, salted, or sanded alleys in winter.” Ten minutes away, Minneapolis plows 400 miles of them as an ordinary service.
What Highland Park has instead is the alley captain — a resident who organizes the block, collects and contracts. Contractor bids run $500 to $1,500 per alley per season, working out to roughly $30 a household and about $600 for a typical whole alley. Highland Park is named directly in the reporting on the practice, alongside West Seventh, Mac-Groveland and Frogtown.
The city will not help you price it: no contractor list, no estimates, and its own note that plow companies need no license to operate in Saint Paul. Which means the certificate of insurance is the only check available to you. The cost splitter, and how to organize it.
The sidewalk is yours within 24 hours, to bare pavement, full width. The city clears and assesses about $280 after notice and reinspection.
And Saint Paul's snow emergency system is not Minneapolis's. Night Plow Routes run 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. and are signed. Day Plow Routes run 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the next day and carry no signs at all — everything not marked as a night route. A ticket is $56, a same-day tow $246. In one November 2025 event the city issued 1,385 tickets and towed 351 vehicles. Both systems explained.
For the alley: cross streets and a door count. For the house: frontage, corner, steps and the walk to the door.
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