Holding a giant stop sign, Fred Wright stands at Sommer Avenue off Pioneer Parkway, coaxing cars around two dump trucks as another worker smooths fresh asphalt mix over a gouge in the road.
“Everyone likes a smooth ride,” said Wright, a city maintenance worker. Wright and Pam Cunningham, another city worker, spent eight hours a day each day this past week cruising sectors of the city and patching potholes.
“The first few days, we went through three truckloads of this mix,” Cunningham said. That’s about three to four tons of cold mix asphalt. Jim Clark, a city maintenance worker who also patches roadways, said on a bad street, crews will fix between 100 and 125 holes.
The city has crews out often repairing the car-rattling holes, but during winter, repairs are an-ongoing process, said David Haste, manager of streets/sewer and forestry for the city.
After a snow storm or freeze, the city will send six to eight crews to repair new holes and resurface old ones.
Workers pack cold mix into a hole and tamp it down, which “holds pretty well,” Haste said.
But cold mix isn’t a permanent patch, especially during winter conditions, said Director of Public Works David Barber.
“It’s not as strong, not as durable and not as long-lasting” as hot mix asphalt, but using the hot mix is inefficient in cold months and requires a “hot box” to heat up a patch of roadway, Barber said.
“That’s still not a long-lasting solution, and it would never be finished,” Barber said. “Unless you permanently fix the street, (potholes) are going to pop up. They can pop up overnight. The cold mix is just to get us through the winter.”
The city budgets between $30,000 and $35,000 for cold mix each year, though not all mix is used for pothole repair, he said.
Freezing water exerts a huge amount of pressure, and as it seeps into cracks in the road and freezes, then thaws on warmer days, the constant pressure change causes portions of asphalt to come loose and separate from the road, Barber said.
This cycle of nature does a number on many vehicles that run over potholes.
“We’ve seen blown struts, minor suspension components broken, and a rash of blown tires,” said Wes Miller, manager at Meineke Car Care Center.
Miller said potholes are a problem even near his shop at 3722 N. Prospect Road. A large hole near Meineke on Prospect and some crumbling of the drive pulling out onto Prospect are common customer complaints, he said.
Lake Avenue between Sheridan Road and Knoxville Avenue also can be a headache for drivers, said Don Shipp, who works at the Circle K at Lake and Knoxville.
“(Customers) say they wish they’d fix them and fix them right,” he said. “They’re to the point where they’re two feet apart. They’ll swallow your tire.”
Barber said Rockwood Drive, a common pothole complaint road, is scheduled for reconstruction this summer, and Northmoor Drive between Sheridan and Knoxville will undergo work, too. Other roads, such as Interstate 474 and state or county routes, aren’t a city responsibility.
While Barber said the best thing is to avoid potholes completely, if a vehicle is damaged by a hole in the road, the driver can turn in a claim to a risk management officer at City Hall.
Lauren Rees can be reached at 686-3251 or [email protected].
Report a pothole: Call public works at 494-8850.
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