Who Has to Clear the Sidewalk? Snow By-laws in Scarborough, North York and Pickering

Who Has to Clear the Sidewalk? Snow By-laws on Both Sides of the Rouge

Scarborough and North York are in the City of Toronto. Pickering is in Durham Region. They sit a few minutes apart on Kingston Road, and the rules for who clears what after a snowfall are completely different. Here is what each municipality actually requires of homeowners, what happens if it isn't done, how to report a problem, and where the liability lands when someone slips. Each rule links to the City or provincial page it comes from, so you can check it yourself.

Toronto (Scarborough and North York): the 2 cm / 12-hour rule

The City of Toronto clears approximately 98 per cent of all sidewalks across the city itself. The trigger is 2 cm of accumulation:

The 12-hour rule is written into Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 719, the City's snow and ice by-law. It puts the sidewalk in front of, beside, or behind a building on the owner or occupant, except where the City has taken that job on. Once the sidewalk is cleared, you are also expected to sand or salt it if it turns slippery again.

Windrows. When the road plow goes by, it leaves a ridge of packed snow across the end of your driveway. The City clears a three-metre opening in that windrow on eligible residential streets, and on eligible collector and arterial roads when the windrow is over 25 cm, aiming to do it within two hours of the road being plowed. The word that matters is eligible. Not every street is on the list, and the service only covers windrows left by City plows. If your street isn't covered, the windrow is yours, and it is the single heaviest shovelling job on the property.

Your own property. The driveway, front walk, steps, porch, and parking pad are never the City's responsibility, and neither is the salting. Since 2022, Chapter 719 has given owners and occupants 24 hours after a snowfall to clear steps, landings, walks, driveways, parking spaces, and ramps so people and vehicles can get in and out safely, and it requires sand or salt on anything that ices up afterwards.

Where the snow goes. Chapter 719 prohibits moving snow or ice from private property onto the road, the sidewalk, or a laneway. Pile it on your own lawn or along the side of the driveway.

If it isn't done. If a sidewalk the owner is responsible for isn't cleared within 12 hours, the City can send a crew to clear it and recover the cost from the owner. Breaking any part of Chapter 719 is also an offence, with fines set under the Provincial Offences Act, which allows up to $5,000 on conviction.

How to report it. An uncleared sidewalk, an unplowed street, or a missed windrow on an eligible street goes to 311 Toronto as a service request.

Pickering: 24 hours, or the City does it and bills you

Pickering's Ice and Snow Clearing By-law 6650/06 puts the sidewalk on the homeowner:

What the City does clear. Pickering starts plowing roads once about 5 cm has built up, with collector roads and bus routes first. It salts and plows sidewalks only in set locations: along regional roads, in front of parks, City buildings, and schools, on rear-frontage sidewalks such as the ones along Dixie Road, on street-to-street walkways, at crosswalks, and in the downtown core. The residential sidewalk in front of your house in Amberlea or Bay Ridges is yours.

Windrows. Pickering does not clear driveway windrows. The City's winter reminders put the snow left at the end of the driveway on the resident, and ask that it be shovelled onto your own boulevard, not back onto the road.

Seniors and residents with disabilities. The City runs a Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Snow Clearing program that clears the windrow and the adjacent sidewalk for up to 750 households. For the 2026/2027 season, registration runs September 11 to October 16, 2026, and the program operates November 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027. Fees are based on income, and applicants need to be the registered owner living at the property.

How to report it. Questions or complaints about an uncleared sidewalk go to the City's Customer Care Centre at 905.683.7575.

Where the liability actually sits

The by-law fee is the small risk. The big one is a slip-and-fall. In Ontario, the Occupiers' Liability Act makes the person in control of a property responsible for keeping it reasonably safe for anyone who comes onto it -- the mail carrier, a delivery driver, a neighbour, a visitor. That covers your walkway, steps, and driveway in both cities. A 2020 amendment to the Act (section 6.1) also requires anyone injured by snow or ice to give written notice of the claim, with the date, time, and location, within 60 days. That cuts both ways, because a claim that does arrive will be recent, specific, and hard to argue if the property was not cleared.

Insurers ask one question after a fall: was the surface cleared and salted, and when? A homeowner who clears "when I get to it" has no answer. A seasonal contract with logged visits does.

The practical rules, side by side

What this means for your winter

If you are in Scarborough or North York, the City has the sidewalk; you have the driveway, the walkway, the steps on a 24-hour clock, and, unless your street is on the windrow list, the windrow. If you are in Pickering, you have all of it, sidewalk included, on a 24-hour clock. Either way, the part that actually hurts people and generates claims is the part that is yours.

A seasonal snow removal contract covers exactly that part: driveway, windrow, walkway, steps, salt every visit, and in Pickering the bordering sidewalk inside the 24-hour window, with every visit logged. Property managers and business owners have the same obligations at a larger scale; our commercial snow and ice management page covers how those accounts are logged. Routes are built in the fall; call (647) 893-3876 or request a quote before the first storm.

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