City addresses pothole patrol strategy

Streets Services is now arranging the start of all sand spread removal and pothole identification and filling for these past Ice Force events.

Although the National Weather Service (NWS) experts expect the recently passed cold weather event to be the last of the season, the next challenge for Streets is to get potholes patched as quickly as possible, weather permitting.

In the past two weeks the City has had fewer than 300 pothole repair calls; 55 of them came in on Monday, March 9th. Streets crews are prepared to tackle this pothole up-call surge.

The plan:
• Even during cold temperature periods, asphalt patching goes on by our field crews using cold weather asphalt patching material.
• Hot-mix asphalt plants are still shut down due to wet weather; the inability to place down hot mix (permanent fix) in wet and/or cold weather conditions dictates that the City must use the cold-mix asphalt (temporary), for now.
• The City currently has 2-4 trucks per district or up to sixteen (we have four districts) working the pothole work logs.
• For efficiencies, each district is further split into halves; 2 trucks work their way up from south to north and the other 2 trucks work from north to south to this each district’s midpoint. With this truck field-distribution model, it takes City crews significantly less time for the closest truck to get to an emergency location and make prompt repairs.
• These City crews are on 12-hour day shifts, Monday through Saturday. This will continue until the City can canvass all areas of concern and potholes are repaired with permanent material—hot mix.
• The City anticipates the asphalt plants will open and start making hot-mix asphalt.
• Road Classification Patching Priority:
o Major arterial roads are tackled first as they have higher speed designs
o Minor arterial roads go next, with lower speed designations
o Neighborhood collectors next, with still lower speed designations
o Residential streets next, with the lowest speed designations