Summer maintenance continues in Vaughan!

Litter cleanup, grass cutting, pothole repairs and more

It is officially summer, and the City of Vaughan’s Public Works crews are working hard to keep our public spaces clean, beautiful and ready for your enjoyment.

Here is an update on our seasonal maintenance operations:

Litter cleanup

The City’s spring-cleaning blitz began in March, with crews collecting litter from Vaughan’s parks and open spaces, such as paths and trails. Madvac – the City’s litter collection vacuum – has been busy collecting litter and debris from Vaughan sidewalks. Look out for Madvac in your neighbourhood! This innovation is another way Public Works staff enhances and expands resources to stay on top of litter. So far, 615 tonnes of litter has been collected this year. 

SmartParks allows you to report a problem such as litter or make a service request by simply scanning a QR code with your smartphone. The City introduced SmartParks as a pilot project in 2022 with five parks, and has rolled out this innovation to an additional 10 locations!

To learn more or to find a specific location near you, visit vaughan.ca/SmartParks.

Shrubs, flowers and more                                                   

Shrub bed planting and maintenance (pruning, mulching, weeding, litter cleanup and watering) will take place regularly throughout the summer. We’ve installed 735 hanging baskets and more than 800 planters this year!

Street sweeping and road maintenance 

The City's street-sweeping program begins in April each year, and it takes approximately eight to 10 weeks to complete one cycle across the city, depending on the weather. This process prevents unwanted materials from flowing into stormwater drains, river pollution, sewer backups and road flooding. The City performs street sweeping across approximately 7,000 kilometres of roads annually. Street sweeping will continue throughout the summer and into the fall. 

Boulevards

The City maintains municipally owned boulevards along roadways not in front of or adjacent to private property. Maintenance of boulevards on private property is the landowner's responsibility. Our boulevard maintenance includes regular grass cutting and removal of debris and leaves.

Potholes

Throughout the year, staff perform routine patrols across the City’s 2,200 lane-kilometres to help keep Vaughan’s roads in a state of good repair. To date, City crews have repaired  2,564 potholes in 2024. The City also inspects more than 1,200 lane-kilometres of sidewalks annually for any defects and will schedule repairs – this work is ongoing throughout the summer. 

You can report potholes or cracked or damaged asphalt to Service Vaughan at 905-832-2281,  service@vaughan.ca or online through vaughan.ca/ServiceVaughan.

Grass cutting

City crews and contractors make 13 grass-cutting cycles across the city, every 14 days, in parks, along boulevards and in open spaces. Maintenance of grass along regional roads, such as Major Mackenzie Drive, Rutherford Road, Bathurst Street, Keele Street and Dufferin Street, is the responsibility of York Region.

It may appear your local park has longer grass than normal – and that’s likely because of the recent weather conditions. The combination of sunny days and lots of rain creates ideal conditions for quick growth. Rest assured, our crews are running on schedule! 

 

Trees

Regular tree maintenance is operating at full capacity. The Forestry Operations team has serviced more than 697 pruning requests, 451 removal requests and inspected 1,169 service requests so far this year.  Any hazards that need to be removed, such as fallen branches, are responded to in a priority sequence. 

Stormwater management ponds

The City maintains more than 150 stormwater ponds. The annual stormwater management pond maintenance program begins in May, and wraps up by October each year to ensure the ground and bank slopes have stabilized to support this work. During this seasonal maintenance, three rounds of litter cleanup and grass cutting will be completed at each pond. Litter is collected before grass cutting, which takes place along the perimeter of the ponds. Crews completing this work move through the City from east to west on a block-by-block basis during each round of maintenance.

Catch basins

The City began removing sediment and debris from the bottom of 10,000 catch basins in May. Catch basins in residential areas are cleaned on a three-year rotation and catch basins in industrial areas are cleaned annually. Cleaning the inside of catch basins is an important control measure taken to ensure the proper flow of stormwater. Removing sediment, debris and pollutants from inside catch basins reduces the risk of flooding and prevents contaminants from entering nearby watercourses. 

Fire hydrants

Crews are busy undertaking their annual inspections of more than 10,000 fire hydrants, with more than 1,700 inspected so far. Preventative maintenance and inspections are performed annually on each hydrant across the city and include flushing, leak testing, cap lubrication and part replacements. 

Pavement markings

The City’s annual pavement marking program begins in May, and typically continues until November, depending on the weather. In 2023, City staff painted approximately 802,000 metres of road markings. So far in 2024, approximately 600,000 metres of pavement markings have been completed. The City refreshes existing pavement markings annually, which includes centrelines, lane lines, crosswalks, stop bars, directional arrows and more. New pavement markings are also implemented to improve traffic operations across Vaughan. 

Traffic signs 

Signs are essential to communicating regulatory, warning and guidance information. The City inspects traffic signs at night to ensure they meet a minimum level of retro reflectivity, as part of the Minimum Maintenance Standards. Approximately 18,000 signs were inspected last year, and the replacement of all old or damaged traffic signs was just completed over the spring. Approximately 18,000 signs will be inspected again in 2024.

Request maintenance service online

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

• Curb, sidewalk or interlock repair
• New pavement markings
• Park, playground or splashpad repairs 
• Road and boulevard maintenance
• Sports fields, courts or skate parks maintenance
• And much more! 

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

To learn more about our summer maintenance operations, visit vaughan.ca/seasonal.

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