Achi news desk-
The City of Calgary has its hands full as more than 6,700 potholes have been filled since the start of the year, following its record 33,489 pothole repairs last year.
“For comparison, this time last year, we’ve done around 5,800. So we’re a little bit higher than we were last year when we filled up so far,” said Chris Hewitt, City of Calgary’s mobility maintenance manager.
“If you look at the service requests coming into the city, so far this year in that range of 4,000. Last year, we were around 3,400 this time, so not a huge difference, somewhere in that 15 per cent region.”
Those numbers are updated on May 5, 2024.
With warmer temperatures by the end of last year, the city was trading snowplows for pothole repairs with a dry start to winter.
“What was challenging about a winter like this and last winter is that we saw a lot of freeze-thaw. So a lot of above and below zero. So that’s when you’re really going to see potholes start to form,” Hewitt said.
“All this snow and ice melts when it’s warm, gets into the cracks in the roads. And then we freeze again. It expands. It causes these holes.”
Hewitt added that some winter seasons see about a dozen freeze-thaw cycles, making the effects less severe on roads.
“If we had less than 30 or 40 this year, I’d be surprised,” he said.
“We had a lot of water getting into the roads and then freezing, and that’s what will typically cause more potholes in the spring.”
The city says it is looking at prioritizing potholes according to the speed limit on a particular road, the number of vehicles traveling on it and where it is located.
“Is it right in a wheel path, or is it maybe off to the side where it’s more likely to be avoided?” said Hewitt.
“We are looking at doing work on the main roads during the night obviously, we are trying to keep off those roads during the day when they are busy.
The city’s annual pothole repair budget is $6.9 million, while Calgary’s pavement quality index is 41/100, below the Canadian average of 61/100.
On Tuesday, the rain slowed progress as conditions were not ideal for mixing water with boiling oil and tar.
However, the city plans to keep crews out every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday along with one day over the weekend, to keep repairs on schedule.
OK Tire Northmount in the north west says they are busy with regular spring maintenance.
“Right now, mostly tires, 90 percent tires,” manager Martin Kasinsky said.
He says the odd repair job on the service is dealing with drivers who hit potholes.
“Especially with the lower profile tires like some of the German cars and the higher end vehicles, one pothole can be a little expensive,” Kasinsky said.
“You can see bent wheels, you can see impact brakes on tires or suspension components from that as well. Usually the first indicator if it’s a pretty big pothole impact is that you’ll notice a rocking or shaking when driving or pulling or drifting to the left or right, depending on where it was hit.”
