Sweeping & Repairs

On this page:

• Maintenance standards
• Hard top roads
• Stone roads
• Seasonally maintained roads

Maintenance standards

From April 16 to October 31 each year, we maintain, sweep, and repair:

• Over 417 km of roads
• About 30 km of sidewalks
• Town parking lots

The Town is required to meet the Provincial Minimum Standard for Municipal Highways (MMS). The MMS are standards from the Province of Ontario for road maintenance. Standards can vary by road class, speed limit, traffic volume and weather conditions on the roadway.

Hard top roads

We have our Roads Needs Study conducted to help identify roads to repair and resurface in our road network. Where feasible, we coordinate work with other infrastructure (i.e. sewer/water main) repairs or road resurfacing projects.

Other maintenance includes sweeping, line painting, ditching, culverts, roadside mowing, rejuvenation, and tree maintenance.

To maintain and preserve our roads, we use typical treatments such as:

• Pothole repair
• Brushing to dry out roadways
• Sweeping
• Ditching and culvert repair
• Roadside mowing and tree maintenance
• Crack sealing
• Line painting
• Mill & high float
• Slurry seal
• Asphalt rejuvenation and sealing
• Expanded asphalt with overlay
• Bridge washing (Spring)
• Full reconstruction

Sweeping

Spring street sweeping usually starts near the end of April or early May depending on the weather conditions, it takes approximately 5 weeks to complete.

Please do not push sand or leaves into piles on the road as the sweeper cannot pick them up.

Potholes

Potholes occur on our roadways when water seeps and builds into cracks in the pavement and softens the ground under the road. The water freezes and expands, which pushes the pavement up. When the water under the pavement dries, a hole is left beneath the road weakening the pavement. As soon as a car drives over this area, the pavement collapses, leaving behind a pothole.

The Town crews regularly patrol streets to identify potholes and other road deficiencies; but potholes can develop daily when temperatures begin to hover around zero degrees. By reporting potholes, you can help ensure that they are repaired in a timely manner.

All roads within the municipality are required to be maintained in accordance with the Provincial Minimum Maintenance Standards. The minimum maintenance standard sets out the maximum size (area) and depth that a pothole can be before a repair is required. It also sets out the amount of time that is allowed to pass before the repair must be completed and that varies based on the road class. The standard ranges from 4 days for heavily travelled roads to 30 days for roads with lesser amounts of traffic.

Frost heave/cross culvert dips

This is caused by areas having two different compaction ratings and the frost heave cycle having more effect in one area than another.

Reconstruction

Between road inspection and Road Needs Study, streets are determined by the level of service required due to ratings. A road might require crack sealing or total reconstruction depending on its rating. Usually when reconstruction is being planned, the Town will brush the road, then ditch and replace culverts. The Town does its best to work with the District of Muskoka and other infrastructure to make sure no future work is planned.

Stone roads

As soon as weather permits in the spring, roads will be graded to remove potholes. A second pass of the grader will be completed to crown the roads before applying calcium chloride once a year in the Spring to control dust.

Seasonally maintained roads

Seasonally maintained roads are graded once a year. Extra grading or material is done at the Director's or designate's discretion.

Check the list of District roads if you are unsure who maintains a road.