Stacked along the streets, blocking bike paths and parking spaces, Montrealers will have to wait at least another two weeks before the piles of branches are all picked up.
According to the city, 80 per cent of the clearing operation has been completed in the majority of the boroughs after a major ice storm wreaked havoc on the city early this month.
The remaining 20 per cent of work in the hardest-hit areas will take weeks to clean up.
Clearing the parks will take the longest, with the wait expected to be close to a month.
The cleanup is the responsibility of each individual borough.
Workers shred the smaller branches, transforming them into wood chips destined to be mulch for the city’s parks or turned into pressboard. Larger tree trunks are cut into pieces but can only be moved by heavy machinery, slowing down the work.
The city says it is looking to get its hands on more equipment and manpower in the coming days to speed up the operation.
In the last tally by the city, officials recorded more than 920 reports of fallen trees and 4,560 requests for broken branches.