Miranda Masih lives alone, and she is a 75-year-old with a heart condition, so she pays a 74-year-old neighbour $20 to cut her grass.

And, as of this year, another $20 to cut the city's grass.

Masih’s modest house sits on a Scarborough cul-de-sac next to busy Gerrard St. E. Between her side fence and Gerrard, there is a “boulevard” — a sidewalk and a swath of public green.

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Until this year, the government maintained residential boulevards everywhere in the amalgamated city except for the former Toronto and York. Now, under a new unified bylaw approved by council last year, people who live along boulevards have to do the mowing themselves.

The change has angered seniors, who say it is both unfair to force homeowners to work on municipal land — “the city takes enough taxes,” Masih said — and dangerous for residents to labour so close to cars on fast-moving suburban thoroughfares.

“I’m petrified, and I’m a strong guy,” said Dennis Elgie, a 65-year-old who lives across the street from Masih.

Elgie said he has to stand “on the curb” to mow the outside portion of the section of boulevard the city has assigned to him, which is more than than 50 metres long and three metres wide. The strip takes him an hour to complete, he said, and extends past his property line to the middle of the cul-de-sac.

“The cars whistle by here at 60 km/h in the inside lane, sometimes more, and it’s damn unsafe to have people trying to go out there cutting grass,” he said. “This is ludicrous, for safety’s sake. I wonder about the liability issues — what happens if I get hit? Or if anything gets thrown out of my mower and hits a car and causes an accident?”

STREET VIEW: See the Gerrard boulevard

Elgie is one of about a dozen residents who have complained to Councillor Gary Crawford. Crawford (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest), a fiscal conservative, said the “cost-cutting” bylaw has produced “ridiculous” consequences. The city, he said, should consider exempting people who live beside busy roads.

“There are certain areas where there is just no way a resident should be cutting that grass,” he said. “There’s a huge safety issue. This is Gerrard — a little old lady was cutting the grass right beside all this traffic. This really shouldn’t be happening. This really should be a transportation (department) responsibility.”

The city disagrees. Residents of Vaughan, Brampton and Pickering all have to maintain boulevards on major streets, said Allan Smithies, traffic planning and right-of-way manager for Etobicoke-York.

“There is no evidence suggesting that cutting the grass or maintaining boulevards next to roads with 60 km/h speed limits is inherently ‘unsafe,’” Smithies said in an email.

“I am not aware of any incidents,” Smithies said, “where a resident was injured by an errant vehicle while performing activities such as grass cutting or boulevard maintenance on any road.”

Cutting grass to “a height not exceeding 20 centimetres” is not residents’ only responsibility. Among other things, they must also keep the boulevard free of litter, leaves, and noxious weeds — “as defined by the Noxious Weed Act” — and “ensure adequate intersection turning sight distances by maintaining soft landscaping and other vegetation located in a boulevard at a height of not more than 0.85 metres measured from the traveled portion of the adjoining road.”

People who do not maintain the boulevards face a fine of $200, according to the city website.

About 1,200 Scarborough households are now responsible for boulevards, said area manager of road operations Trevor Tenn, but nobody had been fined as of early July: bylaw officers were knocking on doors merely to offer “polite reminders” to “please do it, please do it, please do it.”

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Etobicoke’s Colleen Chafe complained to the city and councillors on behalf of her Scarborough parents, seniors in their 70s who live on a quiet street next to the wide boulevard on Ellesmere Rd. Eventually, Chafe said, someone from the city told them verbally that they no longer have to do it.

STREET VIEW: See the Ellesmere boulevard

“They’ve lived there more than 25 years, and they’re elderly, and my dad has arthritis,” Chafe said. “They’re not in the best shape anymore to be risking their lives to be mowing that football field.”