Fewer potholes so far this year
Prince George, B.C. – Whenever the snow is cleared from the roads, another crop of potholes appears, and the City has already had crews making repairs.
( at right, a two foot long pothole that was repaired last year, has reappeared -photo 250News)
“So far this year, our crews have repaired 441 potholes” says Prince George Director of Public Works, Gina Layte- Liston. That’s about 1/5 of the number of potholes filled during the same period a year ago.
There are a couple of reasons for the reduced number this year, weather and previous work.
“Last year, we had a lot more precipitation in 2015 including rain mixed with the freeze-thaws in 2015 compared to this year, so that could be an influence” says Layte-Liston. “We’ve also had a lot less precipitation this, year, less than half the precipitation in January of 2016 than we had in January 2015.”
When there’s a thaw, water collects in any cracks and can get under the pavement. Then when it freezes, the crack is expanded and the pothole develops.
She says the other major factor is the City’s road rehab program “With all the road rehab we’ve been doing over the last number of years, those areas that were of concern and we had a number of calls about, have obviously gone to zero (calls) for this year.”
That’s not to say there won’t be potholes and the City has added its “report a pothole” link on its website to make it easier for you to report the problem areas. ( click here to access that link).
Layte-Liston says it’s early yet to see if the low number of pothole reports continues but her team is preparing for it “We have seen the freeze-thaw patterns and the rain in January approximately for the last three to four years so public works is doing a bunch climate change adaptability work more than anything.” That work includes being more prepared for winter rain and that means clearing snow closer to the curb, clear snow off the catch basins , having utilities crew change from normal winter work to dealing with catch basins and the tunnels.
The repairs being done now are “cold patch” but this year the City is buying an asphalt reclaimer which Layte-Liston says will be able to make a hot patch “That will enable us to make hot patch repairs in the shoulder seasons.”
Comments
“With all the road rehab we’ve been doing over the last number of years, those areas that were of concern and we had a number of calls about, have obviously gone to zero (calls) for this year.”
Yes, I think there’s a reason for this. I tried to report 4 potholes in front of PG Motors over the weekend and the links weren’t working. Then I tried to phone the City to leave a voicemail to report the potholes. Nope. City doesn’t do voicemail on the general line and that line is not worked on the weekends.
So, if your a City employee reading this than I wouldn’t be too in a hurry to pat yourselves on the back. The roads are better, but there are a tonne of potholes showing up that need attention. The City needs to keep up the pressure and devote at least $7M to road repairs like they have for the past couple of years. Doing any less and we will be back to the disrepair we had about 5 years ago.
Please keep the roads in good shape. They play a major role in making our City great!!
What I find concerning is the amount of pot holes that are in roads that were paved in the past two years, that are not in the flow of traffic. So the roads are basically self-destructing and once the pothole gets large enough to be in the flow of traffic will people report them.
Out of the 200 or so city vehicles we have on the roads daily, do none of these drivers see this, report it and help prevent it from getting worse ? The reporting mechanism as noted above, does have some issues.
I totally agree with the above statement.. With all the City vehicles on the road, do they not report these potholes they see??/ or they being lasy and want the public to report to report it instead. They should drive Westwood to Pine Centre and also Gladstone Drive. The roads are their resposibilities, not the public
If you want to see pure neglect, check out the streets in South Fort George.
I don’t think there are fewer but they seem to be getting dealt with faster, the ones at Ferry and the Hwy, were fixed in less than a week, I was impressed.
Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2016 @ 8:11 AM by Stillsmokin with a score of 4
I totally agree with the above statement.. With all the City vehicles on the road, do they not report these potholes they see??
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Not my job.
spoken like a true union member
Worst road in BC, drum roll, Marleau and Bear roads. Heavy traffic, narrow, no sidewalks, no streetlights.
They border three subdivisions, services a major shopping center, it is a mess.
Did the City fix more potholes because of the Canada Winter Games last year?
Clearly no one has taken a survey along Gladstone so far this year – it is a potholer’s dream. I did see a city truck putting cold pack asphalt in a deep hole (lane wide) yesterday by the Fairmont bus stop. It’s been beaten out and open again already 12 hours later.
As to the earlier comment about newly paved roads breaking. That is what happens when you skim coat the top 1 inch of broken asphalt with recycled crud. If no effort is made to fix the broken roadbed, those potholes are back within a very short time, every time. Domano’s most recent repairs are already breaking up. Again!
Yeah and you should see the pile of road fix dumped up at site on CH dump station….some times it half of a load!!
What year are they planning on fixing the left turn lanes at Ferry and 16 for west bound traffic?
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