Citizen reporting becoming a seasonal rite

Owing perhaps to a certain mentality that says “fix it now,” several American cities are approaching pothole repair in the spring of 2013 as a special event. Maybe it’s just another version of spring cleaning. Or, perhaps it is due to the fact that the mild winter of 2011-2012 allowed some reprieve with the return of harsher snow, rain and freeze-thaw cycle conditions in the 2012-2013 season.

Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) is the most northerly city in the Americas with a metropolitan population of more than one million people. So perhaps the fact that it has 600,000 potholes waiting to be fixed in the spring of 2013 should be no surprise.

But the City of Edmonton Roadway Maintenance Director, Bob Dunford, told the Edmonton CTV News that 2013 was extraordinary. “We never broke the 600,000 mark. We hit about 594,000 back in 2007, I think we’ll break that this year,” he said.

In the U.S. and elsewhere, the way to get public officials’ attention to municipal woes such as potholes, broken streetlamps and playgrounds in disrepair is quite modern: phone apps such as SeeClickFix (nationwide),Street Bump (Boston), San Diego 311send the complaint directly to the government agency in charge. Almost everywhere as well, the standard 3-1-1 phoneline is in operation, albeit without the benefit of GPS or smartphone camera shots.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the realm of infrastructure. Or, at least insofar as talking about infrastructure.

It began with outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the former Republican congressman from Illinois serving in the Obama administration since 2009. In a February 6 interview with Diane Rehm, the syndicated National Public Radio host (based out of WAMU radio in Washington, DC), LaHood spoke about his concerns regarding infrastructure funding by the Congress – or to be more accurate, the lack thereof.

Hurricane Sandy’s massively damaged the infrastructure in NY, NJ, NC, CT and RI. Rapid repair of roads, bridges, water and sewer systems will reduce net costs.

The images from Hurricane Sandy’s wrath in northeastern U.S. states include many of streets inundated with water as well as beachfront highways completely destroyed by storm surges. The loss of life, with nearly 100 storm-related deaths reported and the full tally not yet known (as of 11/2/12), as well as human suffering amongst family and communities where entire neighborhoods were destroyed, is of course of utmost concern. But in the clean up, we can expect to see many streets, roads and highways that are rendered unpassable and consequently will need to be rebuilt.