City Bounces into Spring Cleaning Schedule

For Immediate Release
Thursday, April 14, 2016

With spring having officially arrived in Greater Sudbury, the City has started its spring cleaning activities.

Each year, a combination of City staff and contractors are assigned to clean up our road network. That clean up includes drainage mitigation (ditching and snow removal), pothole repair, street sweeping, and line painting. Here's a breakdown of our spring cleaning schedule, what happens and when it happens.

Preparation for spring run-off began with the City's winter ditching program. The program involved removing ice build-up in larger ditches to allow for water to flow from our roadways into our drainage systems and ultimately our creeks, rivers and lakes.

As milder weather arrives, City crews focus on opening up catch basins and some culverts to ensure proper drainage. This is done to reduce the chance of localized ponding or flooding on roads. Crews also perform snow bank removal, on an as needed basis, where snow banks prevent water from flowing into catch basins. 

While pothole repairs are addressed throughout the year, weather conditions in the spring (freeze thaw cycles) make potholes become much more prevalent. Pothole crews are deployed daily, across the City. Crews use different types of repair materials including hot, warm, cold and recycled asphalt to fill the potholes. Our pothole patching lists are formed from information we compile during our road patrols as well as locations provided to us through calls we receive on our 311 system. Residents are encouraged to report pothole locations to 311 so we can send crews out to fix them in a timely fashion. 

Next up is sweeping our roads and sidewalks. The City's street sweeping program generally begins in late April and runs through to mid-June. While some sidewalk cleaning (including the downtown core) is done earlier, the vast majority of roads and sidewalks must wait until the air temperature is consistently above zero. 

Once all of our streets and sidewalks are cleaned up, crews can begin line painting. This traditionally starts mid-May and begins with streets that have already been swept. Line painting will continue throughout the spring, summer and fall months. 

As indicated, our spring clean-up process takes time so we ask residents to be patient. Don't forget: our city is very large! Greater Sudbury is made up of 3,560 kilometers of roadway. That's the distance of a one-lane roadway from here to the Mexico border. Our crews appreciate your patience as they work to make our city cleaner and to improve our vast road network.

Budget budget breakdown:

Spring cleanup - $1.75 million (includes opening ditches, sidewalk and roadway sweeping, catch basin / manhole cleaning)

Pothole repair and patches (year round program): $3.3 million

Line painting - $670,000 (includes road and intersection painting)

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