We’re spring cleaning!

Seasonal maintenance operations are underway with litter collection, street sweeping, pothole repairs and more 

With April showers and blooming flowers, it’s time for spring cleaning in Vaughan!

Our dedicated Public Works crews have begun their annual spring maintenance and cleanup efforts around the community. They are working hard to keep Vaughan’s public spaces beautiful for your enjoyment this spring and summer.

Here is an update on our seasonal operations:

Litter cleanup

The City’s spring-cleaning blitz began in March after the winter thaw, with crews collecting litter from Vaughan’s parks and open spaces such as paths and trails. Madvac – the City’s litter collection vacuum – is working along City sidewalks to pick up litter and debris. Look out for Madvac in your neighbourhood! This innovation is another way Public Works staff is enhancing and expanding resources to stay on top of litter.

Shrubs, flowers and more

Shrub bed planting and maintenance (including pruning, mulching, weeding, litter cleanup and watering) will take place regularly throughout the season. ​A total of 735 hanging baskets and 800 planters will be installed across the city beginning the week of June 2. ​

Street sweeping and road maintenance 

The City's street-sweeping program begins in April each year and 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, causing 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 spring, summer and into 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. Approximately 25 tonnes of litter and garbage from illegal dumping have been removed so far this year from City boulevards and rights-of-way.

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 more than 600 potholes. 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 spring and summer. 

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

Grass cutting

Biweekly grass-cutting will begin the last week of April and continue throughout the spring and summer for a total of 13 cycles, each running for two weeks. 

Trees

Regular tree maintenance is operating at full capacity. Work is underway to prune approximately 25,000 trees in 2025. This year’s program is Vaughan’s largest so far, marking a new era of proactive service delivery for the City’s urban forest. 

The Forestry Operations team has serviced 619 pruning requests, 237 removal requests and inspected 284 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 in the community. 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 will take 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 removes sediment and debris from the bottom of 10,000 catch basins starting 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 will soon begin annual inspections of more than 10,000 fire hydrants. Preventative maintenance and inspections are performed annually on each hydrant across the city and include flushing, leak testing, cap lubrication and part replacements. 

Water valve exercising

Crews will soon begin annual inspections and exercising programs on almost 3000 water distribution valves. This proactive work ensures Vaughan has an efficient and reliable water distribution system and focuses on critical areas of City infrastructure.

Pavement markings

The City’s pavement marking program will begin in May, and typically continues until November, depending on the weather. The City painted approximately 700,000 metres of road markings in 2024. Annually, the City refreshes existing pavement markings, which include centrelines, lane lines, crosswalks, stop bars and directional arrows. New pavement markings are also implemented to improve traffic operations city-wide. 

Sign retro-reflectivity inspections

Signs are considered essential to communicating regulatory, warning and guidance information. The City inspects key traffic signs for reflectivity at night to ensure traffic signs meet the minimum level of retro-reflectivity, as part of the City’s maintenance standards. Approximately 16,500 signs were inspected last year. Starting in January, staff began repairs to traffic signs identified through the inspection program. Repairs are expected to continue throughout the summer.

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 traffic sign or 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 spring-cleaning operations, visit vaughan.ca/seasonal.

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