Keeping Vaughan clean and green

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. With a few more weeks left of summer, we’re sharing an update on our ongoing seasonal maintenance operations:

Water maintenance
Vaughan’s drinking water system includes more than 10,000 hydrants. We inspect fire hydrants and watermains annually to ensure clean, clear and operational pipes. Crews have inspected more than 5,000 hydrants and painted more than 6,000 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. 

Potholes

Keeping our road network in good condition is a top priority! So far this season, we’ve repaired more than 2,500 potholes! 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 continues throughout the summer and fall. Street sweeping prevents unwanted materials, such as yard waste and litter, from flowing into stormwater drains, river pollution, sewer backups and road flooding. More than 6,200 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. Recent efforts have focused on weed control across City-owned land. This year alone, we’ve already removed more than 96,000 kilograms (211,643 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 – you can help by properly disposing of waste and picking up after your pets. 

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.

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