Keeping our city safe, clean and beautiful

The City of Vaughan’s Public Works crews are dedicated to ensuring the city’s public spaces remain safe, clean and beautiful for your enjoyment. Here is an update on our ongoing summer maintenance operations:

Forestry maintenance

Our crews are hard at work maintaining Vaughan’s beautiful trees. To date, staff have planted more than 490 trees and have completed more than 140 tree stump removals and 1,900 tree inspections. Any hazards that need to be removed, such as trees or branches, are responded to in a priority sequence.

Through a Council-endorsed Tree Maintenance Strategy (PDF), the City is transitioning to a cycle where trees are pruned every seven years. This strategy – which includes increased tree inspections – allows us to adopt a more cost-effective approach to tree maintenance. It also prioritizes quality services by managing and improving the urban forest and increasing canopy cover – which is important to the overall health of the Vaughan community and ecosystem. You can learn more about how we are planning for the future of Vaughan’s trees through the Urban Forest Management Plan. 

Following this direction, we’re taking a new approach to individual pruning requests. Non-emergency requests that follow our pruning schedule will be addressed accordingly, while all other requests will be managed in priority sequence following an inspection. Once a service request is created, a forestry inspector will visit the site within 30 business days to examine the tree's condition and determine next steps. It can take up to eight months for a tree to be pruned and up to 12 months for a tree stump to be removed.

Parks and open spaces
Our crews continue to refresh our parks with new park benches – 130 new benches will be installed across the city for you to enjoy. They offer a great place to rest, enjoy the outdoors, watch your children as they play in our playgrounds and more!

Shrubs, flowers and more

Not only are we keeping Vaughan clean, but we’re also making our community more beautiful! Parks, Forestry and Horticulture Operations has planted over 2,250 pollinators so far this year!

Potholes

Keeping our road network in good condition is a top priority, and we’ve already repaired more than 2,375 potholes this season! Watch this video to see how we handle pothole repairs.

Street sweeping and road maintenance

The City's street-sweeping program began in April and will continue throughout the summer and into the fall. Street sweeping prevents unwanted materials from flowing into stormwater drains, river pollution, sewer backups and road flooding. More than 5,000 kilometres of street sweeping has already been completed this year.

You can support our street-sweeping operators by following these guidelines:

• Do not park vehicles on the road.
• Do not blow or rake leaves or grass clippings onto the roadway.
• Keep waste materials off the road.

You are also encouraged to remove anything from your property that may interfere with or be hazardous to street-sweeping operators. This includes landscaping features such as fencing, basketball nets, decorative stones, pots, bird baths, furniture and more, as stated in the City’s Encroachment By-law 034-2017 (PDF). These items should not be within 30 centimetres of a sidewalk or one metre of a street curb.

Boulevards

We maintain City-owned boulevards along roadways not in front of, or adjacent to, private property. Maintenance of boulevards on private property is the landowner's responsibility, including side lots. We conduct regular grass cutting (every two weeks) and remove debris and leaves. This year alone, we’ve already removed more than 87,000 kilograms (191,800 pounds) of litter and illegal dumping from City boulevards and City-owned land.

Litter cleanup

Our crews continue removing litter from the community using Madvac, an innovative litter collection vacuum, to keep parks, open spaces, boulevards, sidewalks, paths and trails clean. Let’s work together to keep the community clean by properly disposing of waste and picking up after pets.

Water maintenance
Annual inspections of fire hydrants and watermains are ongoing to ensure clean, clear and operational pipes. Crews have inspected more than 4,300 hydrants this year. In addition, we address all water shut-off and turn-on requests. Non-emergency water shut-off and turn-on requests can be made online and must be submitted four to six weeks before the service is required.

Request maintenance services online

Did you know you can request repair and maintenance services online through Service Vaughan? Via the online portal, you can request maintenance for:

• curbs, sidewalks or interlocks
• new pavement markings
• parks, playgrounds or splashpads
• roads and boulevards
• sports fields, courts or skate parks
• tree pruning, planting and removal
• and much more!

Once a ticket has been created, staff will respond to each request in priority sequence.

We remain committed to providing top-notch services to the Vaughan community. Together, let’s keep our city beautiful and well-maintained. To learn more about our summer operations, visit vaughan.ca/seasonal.

For updates and news as they happen, subscribe to Vaughan News and follow the official corporate channels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.