City making inroads on spring cleanup

The spring cleaning of Winnipeg is well underway to make the city ship-shape ahead of summer.

Street and sidewalk sweepers are making their way throughout the city, sucking up dust and sand left behind by winter weather. Water trucks douse the streets and sidewalks, so the sweepers have an easier time picking up winter’s waste.

Crews began the cleanup on April 19 and are expected to work for the next six weeks or so, said Michael Cantor, the city’s manager of street maintenance.

A thunderstorm Wednesday night forced crews to pause operations for 30 minutes for safety reasons, but they are still on track for the project, Cantor said.

The rain helps suppress some of the dust on city streets, but too much can delay operations.

“If it’s always rainy, then we’re going to have problems sweeping the boulevards, but some rain once in a while works,” he said.

The city is focusing on cleaning active transportation routes and downtown before moving to roads and residential areas, but work in some neighbourhoods is already underway.

Last week the city announced, as an addition to the annual citywide spring cleanup, four neighbourhood action teams will spend the next three weeks blitzing downtown to clean up, remove graffiti and pick up garbage.

Crews are working their way through the area from the Assiniboine River north through the Exchange District and from Memorial Boulevard and Balmoral Street east to the Red River.

Take Pride Winnipeg recently released its annual litter index, which identified north central Winnipeg — which includes the downtown core — as the grimiest area in the city.

The area is now about 75 per cent done, Cantor said.

He would like the blitz to be replicated in other high-traffic areas, such as Osborne and Corydon Village and St. Boniface in future years.

The forecast on Sunday evening includes rain, which might mean crews will need to take the night off and resume operations Monday.

Meantime, the city continues to fill potholes. At last count, crews had filled approximately 43,600 potholes this year, city spokesperson Kalen Qually said Thursday.

Repair crews fill the craters with a temporary “cold mix” before switching to hot asphalt for longer-term repairs when the weather gets warmer in May.

Last year the city spent $5.2 million repairing potholes, down from $6.3 million in 2024.

Next on the city’s to-do list is street lane marking, which commences after street cleaning wraps up. Pavement marking typically begins in early May, Qually said.

In 2024, the city looked at its current system of lane marking after significantly falling behind owing to outdated equipment and a high number of rainy days.

At the time, Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of the public works committee, put forward a motion asking what it would cost for the private sector to conduct a second application of line painting. A 2020 report said about 25 per cent of line markings have to be painted a second time during the same season because of weather conditions and resource constraints.

The city’s 18-year-old machine was out of service for almost a week in 2024 owing to weather conditions. The machine paints markings on streets, bike lanes and pedestrian paths to replace faded or erased markings.

The city is in the process of acquiring a second line-painting truck to assist in operations this year. A portion of the lines was completed by a contractor in 2025, Qually said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca