Ward 4's Alleys Are Being Neglected. Here Is the Plan to Fix Them
Over the past several months I have knocked on doors across Ward 4, and one issue comes up in almost every neighbourhood I visit: the alleys. Not potholes. Not taxes. The alleys.
What I am hearing is not a cosmetic complaint. It is a health and safety complaint. Residents in several parts of the ward have told me they are dealing with rats coming out of the overgrowth in the back lanes. They describe weeds and brush left to grow waist high for a full season, garbage and yard waste piling up with nowhere to go, and a city that does not come around to deal with any of it until someone complains for the third or fourth time.
That is not a neighbourhood that has let itself go. That is a neighbourhood the city has stopped maintaining.
I want to be careful and fair here, so let me lay out what has actually happened, because the record matters.
How we got here
For decades, many Ward 4 homes had their garbage and yard waste collected in the alley behind the house. That changed. In February 2024, council voted to end alley collection, and as of April 1, 2025, the city stopped collecting garbage and yard waste in residential alleys, moving roughly ninety percent of the two hundred and nineteen serviced alleys to front curbside pickup. The city's reasons were real: overgrowth made it unsafe for the trucks, fences and sheds had encroached into the lanes, many alleys were never built to carry a garbage truck's weight, and plenty of alleys were never on the snow clearing route to begin with.
I understand the operational case. But here is the problem. When you take the collection out of the alley, the alley does not disappear. It is still there. It is still a public space. And it still needs to be maintained. Instead, we removed the one thing that brought city attention into the lane every single week, and we replaced it with nothing.
That is where the rats come from. Overgrowth gives rodents cover and harbourage. Standing waste and unmaintained brush give them food and shelter. And once a back lane gets that reputation, it spreads block to block.
The plan council directed was never carried out
This is the part that bothers me most, because it is about accountability, not money.
Back in 2023, council directed staff to form a working group to develop new city rules for alley upkeep. This was not my idea. It was council's own direction. Reporting at the time found that the group never actually convened. Council told staff to act, and the direction was ignored.
In the same period, bylaw enforcement was drowning. By May 2024, the city had roughly fifteen hundred outstanding calls for unmaintained lawns and unkempt alleys, up from about five hundred just two months earlier, with only twelve full time bylaw officers on the job. A proactive alley enforcement report was promised to council. Residents are still waiting to see a lane get cleaned on a schedule instead of on a complaint.
So we have a clear pattern. A problem grows. Residents get frustrated. Council passes a direction. The direction is not followed. The problem grows some more.
What a real plan looks like
I am not going to stand here and pretend the city has no budget pressures. It does. But "we cannot afford it" is a weak answer when the real failure has been follow through. Here is what I will push for at City Hall, and I will hold the administration to it.
First, a published alley maintenance standard. Not a policy document that sits on a shelf. A standard with a schedule attached: when alleys are cut back, when brush is cleared, when lanes are graded, and who is responsible. If a resident can see the calendar, they can hold the city to it.
Second, proactive enforcement sweeps, not complaint driven enforcement. The city already knows which lanes are chronic problems. We should be sending crews into those known lanes on a rotation, funding that work, and reporting the results publicly. Right now the system only works if a frustrated resident makes a call, waits, calls again, and waits again.
Third, a real rodent response. Overgrowth and unmanaged waste are a public health issue, and the city should be coordinating with our public health partners on a proper abatement plan for the alleys where rats have taken hold. This is not a nuisance. It is a health risk to families with kids and to the businesses on our commercial streets.
Fourth, treat alleys as infrastructure. That means grading, drainage, and surface maintenance as part of the same asset plan that covers our roads and sidewalks. An alley is a road. It should be maintained like one.
Fifth, report back in public. Set targets, measure them, and publish whether we hit them. That is what accountability means. Not a promise at a meeting, but a number residents can check.
Why this fits the Ward 4 I am running to represent
My platform is simple. Lower taxes. Safer streets. Roads fixed. Accountability at City Hall.
Alley maintenance touches every one of those. Neglected alleys are a safety issue, plain and simple, and I hear it from parents and seniors who no longer feel comfortable walking the back way home. They are an infrastructure issue, because a back lane is a road and it is crumbling while our road budget gets spent elsewhere. And they are an accountability issue, because council already gave the direction and it was ignored.
Residents and businesses in Ward 4 do not need another study. They need a concrete plan and a clear direction, with someone at the table who will follow up until the work is actually done.
That is what I intend to be. If you are tired of the same cycle, of problems growing until you have to complain three times to get a lane cut, then I am asking for your vote.
Election day is Monday, October 26. Polls are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can find your polling place and more at xward4.ca. Let us get Ward 4's back lanes cleaned up and kept that way.
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