One Million Bucks Into Potholes This Year
Prince George, B.C.- With a budget of just over $1 million dollars, the work to patch potholes in the City has been underway for a couple of months now.
In a report to Council, Director of Operations Bill Gaal says the freeze thaw cycles that hit the City over this past winter, will have had a major impact in creating or worsening potholes. “With the current winter season experienced in Prince George, Administration expects to see significant potholes this spring.”
Gaal has advised Council that progress is being made, if one looks at the calls for service.
From January to end of March, there have been 193 calls for service. That compares to 294 calls for service during the same period last year, and 426 calls during the same three months of 2012.
The good news is that roads which have had significant pothole presence, are on the list of roads that will be repaved this year. Those roads include: Chief Lake Road, Lansdowne Road, North Nechako Road, Malaspina, Simon Fraser, Old Caribou Hwy and Giscome Road. The full list of transportation road rehab projects has not yet been released.
The pothole repair budget is part of the Operations Department’s budget. A further $9 million will be spent on capital road rehabilitation projects.
At the height of pothole patch season, the City can schedule 4 separate crews to repair potholes working day afternoon and night shifts.
You are encouraged to contact City Hall to advise of any pothole that needs repair, (250-561-7600) or you can go to the City’s website and fill out a pot hole report.
Comments
Better plan some maintenance on South Ospika otherwise that will have to be redone in a couple of years! Didn’t the city get some kind of warranty on that job? Or was it only one year!
and if they wouldnt have wasted $350,000 on the review they could fix a lot more.
I wouldn’t mind the amount they spend, except this is more of a pothole ‘maintenance’ budget rather than a mitigation budget. The same potholes in the same areas seem to be getting fixed year after year. We are bad at fixing potholes permanently.
A few years ago they looked at better patching methods and machines. Whatever happened with that?
Whatever patch compound they use sucks. They recently patched the potholes on my street and those potholes are now empty with patch compound all over the road.
Ha Ha Ha!! April Fools Day! They have really only budgeted 50 bucks for pothole repairs.
Are we ever going to get asphalt contracts that include warranty work?
They can’t seem to fix the run off problems that allow water to settle on the road and thus cause the pot holes, so we will always pay more than we should be for the pot hole repairs.
To fix a pothole properly, you have to cut out an area around the pot hole, replace the base gravel and then reseal with new asphalt. Think of asphalt as paint. It holds nothing, just seals. If the gravel underneath has failed, you have to fix this. Adding more asphalt without fixing the gravel base is a very short term fix.
The structure of the road comes from the gravel underneath, not the asphalt. The asphalt protects the gravel from moisture. Once moisture has entered the road base, you have to get this out and restore a level road base before you reseal with asphalt.
Unfortunately, the City hasn’t figured this one out yet and that’s why we fix the same areas year in and year out. Each year the cost will only go up as the same areas needing fixing and more road areas fail.
Problem with patching is you crate a uneven surface, this uneven surface gets pounded by tires of vehicles and works like a hammer to pound out the asphalt or patch material that has been applied. Just look at highway 16 west going up past the Walmart, it was very rough by the automated patching machines last year and now is full of potholes wherever the crack filling occurred.
If they took the time to get the patch to as smooth as possible the patches would last longer, unfortunately if the water underneath lifts the patch the vehicles will once again pound out the fill. Speed is not as much of a factor as the level, a patch can be pounded out at 10 kilometres an hour as seen in parking lots. Once a pothole, the tire pounding will enlarge it unless people avoid it or it is filled regardless of speed.
What only one dollar a pot hole ?
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