The election of Rahm Emanuel to the mayor's office in Chicago without a runoff – he garnered 55 percent of the vote in the February election, enough to save voters and the city the hassle and expense of a runoff election – is regarded as a minor miracle in this most political of cities. And that's a good thing, because the cash-strapped metropolis, like so many others, can use the money for other things. Not the least of which is repairs to the Windy City's infrastructure – including the potholes.
But my own Chicago miracle came a few weeks earlier, and it had everything to do a pothole. Specifically, a big, gaping, Volkswagen-jarring pothole on the Foster Street rise on Lake Shore Drive. I hit it twice, two days in a row, as I headed toward downtown in the southbound side of the famous parkway. So after the second hit, I did what I heard we could do: I called the non-emergency 3-1-1 city services line.

I half expected I would end up blogging about the series of fruitless phone calls I would make about that darn pothole. Chicago is a city of aldermanic wards, where seeking help with a municipal problem is thought to require knowing your alderman or alderwoman. But I didn't go that route. I just went through the standard, know-nobody system. Surely, I thought, the 3-1-1 program is just public relations, a bureaucratic black hole that goes deeper than any pothole anywhere on The Drive, the Kennedy, the Eisenhower, the Stevenson or any of the presidents' streets (Washington, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, etc.).
Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The City of Chicago fixed this pothole in less than 24 hours. The night after I phoned it in, I drove slow enough over that rise and in the lane to the immediate right side of the pothole. In place of a jagged crevice in the road, that chuckhole (what potholes are sometimes called), had a smooth, blacker-than-the-rest-of-the-road face. Chicago Streets & Sanitation workers really outdid themselves on this. It was a pothole no more.
What it takes to get a pothole fixed in Chicago
Perhaps it was due to the fact that Lake Shore Drive is a major thoroughfare. The parkway's Main Branch Chicago Bridge handles 112,000 cars every day – commercial vehicles prohibited, it should be noted – and this particular section connects the near-North Shore suburbs of the city (Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka and others) to downtown. Several miles of this part of Lake Shore Drive was a virtual battlefield of potholes in the winter of 2008-2009, after which a major pavement preservation program restored it to cruising beauty the following summer (summoning the old pothole-related joke about there only being two seasons in Chicago: winter and construction).
In fact, there are thousands of potholes in the city, like any other city, that need filling. At mid-February, just two weeks after the Groundhog's Day Blizzard of 2011, various media outlets reported on the condition of Chicago-area roads:
<ul>
<li>Although winter's worst might be behind us, stretches of roadway are still causing problems for drivers as they swerve around the potholes popping up across the city and suburbs. And in many cases, melting ice and snow are the culprit. "We welcome the spring," Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Bobby Ware said Tuesday. "But we also welcome our pothole temperatures." (Chicago Tribune, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Drive with care. Pothole season is here. Due to the melting snow during the day and freezing temperatures at night, potholes are starting to pop up on the Chicago area's streets. The City of Chicago received 400 reports on Monday of potholes. "The good news is it's not as bad as a couple of winters ago," said Brian Steele, of the city's Department of Transportation. "Since December 1st, we're only at about 84,000 potholes." (WGN-TV, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The warm-up around Chicagoland is definitely welcome, but one thing that comes with it isn't: potholes. City officials expect the number of pothole reports to spike this week. They said at a press conference Tuesday morning that there were 400 calls to 311 Monday and warned the worst is still ahead. The warm-up will provide the thaw part of the pothole cycle, and we've been in the deep freeze a long time now. The expanding and contracting asphalt, along with the rumble of traffic will stress many areas on Chicago's streets, will cause the cracks Chicagoans despise. (Fox News Chicago Reporter Joanie Lum, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
Almost every news report urges Chicago residents to report their pothole-peeves to the city through the <a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/provdrs/street/svcs/report_a_pot_holeinstreet.html">3-1-1 system</a>. When contacting them, be sure to provide as much detail on the location of the pothole (address or section of road, which lanes, and approximate size of the pothole or potholes).
The phone-in system is pretty easy – one call does it all if you can adequately describe the location of the pothole and its approximate size. The online system is relatively easy too, asking for that much information as well as who you are, where you live and how you can be contacted. Once you file the online report, you receive a confirmation e-mail that includes a tracking number and a link to a status query page. To follow up on progress, you can phone back to the 3-1-1 system with the tracking number to find out the status of the order.
All great cities are about great pavement
That early February snowstorm might have spelled political disaster under different circumstances. Former Mayor Jane Byrne won her seat in 1979 after the incumbent, Michael Bilandic, was widely blamed for botching the cleanup after another early-February snowstorm that dumped 35 inches on the streets of Chicago that year, Lake Shore Drive included. Byrne was saddled with pothole repairs in the aftermath – literally and metaphorically speaking – which stretched into the full four years of her term before she was bounced from office by Harold Washington in 1983. But in 2011, long-time Mayor Richard M. Daley was retiring and no candidate was so strongly attached to him that the snow cleanup – which went relatively well, except for an overnight 700-car logjam on the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive – influenced the election.
And so go the political fortunes of Chicago's mayors. The Chicago Tribune opined in January upon what is to come for the new mayor when he or she took office later in the spring. Rethinking the city's aldermanic-ward system – which in the case of my Lake Shore Drive pothole repair proved unimportant – is what the paper believes can help the city meet future infrastructure challenges.
Many aldermanic candidates seem determined to preserve Chicago's 50 fiefdoms as service delivery zones, regardless of cost. They're still wedded to the city's inefficient ward system for snow removal or garbage pickup, for example, despite the savings that would be realized by using a grid plan that ignores ward boundaries. They know residents are far more focused on potholes than pensions, and we get that, too. But something has to give — and that can't only mean the taxpayers.
I've seen a miracle with a pothole on Lake Shore Drive, so I know it is possible. Now let's see if the miracles can multiply themselves by a factor of about 300,000, the estimated number that need to be repaired in Chicago sometime in 2011.

Can One Chicago Pothole Miracle Be Repeated?

Chicago's most trusted meteorologist, Tom Skilling, dares to guide the 8 million people in the greater Chicago metro area through some of the country's most harsh and unpredictable weather. From his perch as chief weathercaster on WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune, he is the point of first consult every morning for those who plan to venture outside – spring, summer and fall, but most especially, in winter. The frigid season of 2010-2011 is expected to be no different.
And while the nature of what he does is based on winds and moisture and pressure systems miles above the earth's surface, his focus of course is on how it affect people on the ground. That includes the ground itself – and road pavement – as in how potholes form and affect traffic.

In a particularly chilly stretch of several weeks in January 2009, it was Skilling who reported that longtime mayor Richard Daley was admitting the degree of pothole damage to the city's streets had become unmanageable.
"City Hall's 21 pothole repair crews have been dispatched across the city, filling an average of 3,700 potholes a day over the first eight days of the year," he wrote. "But Daley said hundreds of new reports come in each day and thousands of potholes remain unplugged. 'When snow and ice are packed in the street, it's nearly impossible for crew to make any pothole repairs,' the mayor said. 'It is difficult to work with cold patch material in sub-zero temperatures. It pops up … It's frozen when you put it down.'"
The mayor, and Skilling's reporting, touched on a common problem with mid-winter pothole repairs. But neither made the distinction between lower-quality asphalt material and premium cold asphalt. Just north of the city, in Evanston Township, the streets department was working with a different kind of high-performance cold asphalt (EZ Street brand). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/0/3igqoRWCUrw">This clip</a> shows both when the repairs were made during that same cold stretch in January 2009, as well as 10 months later, after the patch had been through spring, summer and fall.
Unlike Mayor Daley's lament about pothole patches that pop up, it bears noting that Evanston streets foreman Don Cornelius said, "It held up real well, it didn't push out in the summertime."
Chicago is predicted to get a colder than normal winter, with very cold periods in December, late January and mid-February 2011. Precipitation (snowfall) will also be near or slightly above normal, with a snowstorm predicted for the latter part of January. In the 120-year history of weather record keeping, Chicago has had 19 days of snowfall totaling more than 10 inches, including an 18.6 inch snowfall on January 2, 1999, which was part of a three-day storm bringing in 21.6 inches overall. In terms of annual snowfall accumulation, the 2009-2010 winter had a relatively large total of 54.3 inches. The winter of 2008-2009 was close behind with 52.7 inches, but both were eclipsed by the 60.3 inches that fell in 2007-2008. Compare those to a string of mild winters in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, which included the 1988-1989 winter's mere 24.5 inches of accumulation.
Potholes meet their match
To hardy Midwesterners, the past isn't prologue. Every winter is different. But inevitably, the true cost after the sidewalks and driveways are shoveled and the roads are plowed, comes in damages to cars as a result of potholes.
It's an old story with a thousand chapters. The trail leading to auto repair shops (pothole hits can blow out tires, damage wheel rims, break axles and can cause a car to crack its catalytic converter) can start below the earth, as it did in north suburban Lake County in January 2010. A water main break under Route 43, a state road, caused existing pavement to heave up. This would surely be a traffic-stopper if left untended. So as detailed in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/3/sCZjhwi5mkk">this clip</a>, crews dug down more than 12 inches to prep for a permanent fix using <a href="http://www.ezstreetasphalt.com/products/">EZ Street premium cold asphalt</a>, done in four "lifts" (layers, separately laid and compacted).
That was on a balmy 30-degree winter day. Just a week later in another Chicago suburb, Westmont, the temperatures were 5 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) – the kind of temperature dip that keeps weathercaster Tom Skilling busy, and which inevitably leads to freeze-thaw cycles and road damage that results in potholes. It was just another day when a utility cut needed to be repaired, so crews in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/2/j4yStw3whUA">this video</a> demonstrated how the cold mix product was still pliable in arctic conditions.
The winter of 2009-2010 in the Chicago area was relatively mild, pothole-wise. The Chicago Tribune reported in April, the moment between potholes and road construction and repair season, that the 225,000 potholes patched that year was a "substantial drop from previous winters." The preceding winter (2008-2009) saw more than 350,000 potholes repaired, while 450,000 potholes were patched in the winter before that (2007-2008), according to the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT).
Why the diminishing numbers? CDOT says it was due to combination of factors, primarily fewer freeze-thaw cycles (i.e., more consistent stretches of freezing temperatures) and that 31 miles of city arterial streets had been resurfaced from the 2009 federal economic stimulus package.
"Last winter, we were filling tens of thousands of potholes on the pothole-plagued streets, and we were out to those locations [where streets have since been resurfaced] several times,' said CDOT's Brian Steele to the Chicago Tribune. "This time, we've not been out there once." Steele says their crews work seven days a week during the height of the season, even though complaints were down last winter. But he knows the law of atrophy applies to pavement as much as pyramids and people. There will be more potholes developing in Chicago – and the department wants to be informed.
"Please report a pothole when you see it," Steele says. "There are more than 3,800 miles of streets in Chicago, and potholes can occur on any of the streets. And we depend on the eyes and ears of the citizens to help us find the locations."
Chicago is a little behind the curve on pothole reporting. The city's 3-1-1 non-emergency hotline is the primary place to call in a pothole complaint. But that requires the reporting citizen to remember to make the call, accurately describe a location, and for the human being at the 311 center to gather that information and send it to appropriate CDOT officials for attention. Multiply that times tens of thousands, and it's understandable if there are some mistakes made in reporting. In other cities – Boston, Portland (Oregon), Charlotte (North Carolina) and Los Angeles, to name a few – citizen smartphone apps are now streamlining that process considerably. The individual needs only to point, shoot and send, providing a visual as well as GPS pinpoint location – eliminating the opportunity for human error in the process.
Who pays when potholes inflict damage?
For motorists whose cars are damaged by a pothole, the city will compensate, on valid claims, for half of the repair cost, up to $2000. City Council member Donal Quinlan told the Chicago Tribune, "The logic is the driver may have had some chance to avoid the damage." Claim forms can be obtained through the <a href="http://www.chicityclerk.com/claims.php">city clerk's office</a>. 
But some claims fall into no-man's-land sometimes. When there is a dispute on a claim, it might be about which government body is responsible – the city, county or state. Driver Sharon Brennan found out about that the hard way in the nearby suburb of Winnetka. She had sustained a blown tire, which ended up costing $147.66 to repair. The village of Winnetka refused to cover any costs because the road on which she was driving (Green Bay Road) is under the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois. But efforts to collect the damages from the state were unsuccessful as well. "Green Bay Road is under the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois, but all surface maintenance is the responsibility of the village, and any associated liability is the responsibility of the village," said Illinois Department of Transportation spokesperson Josh Kauffman in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
When Brennan went back to the village to refile her claim with that information, the village refused her request for $147.66, saying there had been no report of the pothole to them prior to her mishap. Winnetka, population 12,419, has a median household income of $277,371 and a median home value of $1.5 million.
The nearby city of Rockford, Illinois has a population of 150,000 people and surprisingly far fewer claims of pothole damage on its streets. In 2009, the municipality only paid out on 15 pothole-damage claims for a total of $5,792.36.
Why so few claims and such a small payout? Most residents were, until recently, unaware they could collect anything at all. But the standard for a successful claim is high, as it is in many cities (including Chicago). The pothole that caused your damage necessarily needs to have been reported prior to your accident and gone unrepaired by city work crews.
But the city's legal director, Patrick Hayes, also says that minimal road maintenance prior to 2007 simply has led to more potholes than in previous years. But a new infrastructure sales tax in the past two years has raised more funds to catch up a bit on repairs. But make no mistake – Rockford has its share of potholes. And the bureaucratic costs are not limited to those payouts. From the city's risk management budget, an estimated $216,000 was paid out in 2009 to cover insurance, legal claims and judgments.
Since more people became aware they can make claims in Rockford, "it's been a tremendous work spike for our Public Works Department and Legal Department to deal with all of the claims," says Hayes.
Cities like Rockford, Chicago, Winnetka, Evanston and Westmont (as well as Oak Brook, Joliet, Springfield, Kankakee, Champaign-Urbana, Normal, Bloomington, Decatur and Naperville) should all benefit from a $100 million fund announced by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn in September. The funds are dedicated to helping cities and towns repave roads or otherwise repair potholes, as well as maintain bridges, install traffic signals, construct storm sewers and sidewalks and build bicycle paths.
The state has already invested $8 billion in federal and state dollars since 2009 in roads and bridges. It has been part of why pothole incidence is down. With an investment in pavement preservation, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – and a few tons less of car repairs and damage claims.

Pothole repairs confound Illinois cities, counties

The most modern of innovations, smartphone apps, are rapidly becoming a means to fix one of humankind's oldest problems: potholes.
And why not? Regardless of whether you were a fan of Isaac Asimov or the television show "Bewitched," the futuristic/magical ability to point at a problem and fix it instantly (well, almost) is instinctively appealing. To do that, there are now several apps that combine the basic smart phone tools – cameras, the global positioning system (GPS) and a short-cut email function – which enable a single snap-send way to report a pothole (or graffiti or broken streetlights or other municipal problems).

The fact that several apps have been developed – some that are city-sponsored, others operating nationally by third parties who then patch the report through to local street and highway maintenance departments – suggests this is an idea and technology whose time has come.
This "civic app" is so new (most were introduced in the winter of 2009 –2010) that there is not a lot of data to show how effective it is. But we can learn a lot from what Portland, Oregon has done with its mobile app. There, citizens are connected directly to city services that repair streetlights, potholes, sewer catch basins, graffiti and park equipment. When the app was launched in February 2010, citizens in the tech-savvy city were quick to embrace it.
But Portland's maintenance crews were initially overwhelmed with reports on potholes that needed fixing. Your intrepid Pothole.info reporter contacted Rick Nixon, Project Manager for Technological Initiatives at the City of Portland to see what has happened since, particularly as they gear up for the 2010 – 2011 pothole season.
Pothole.info: We read about your successful launch in early 2010, followed by how street maintenance crews had a hard time keeping up with incoming pothole reports. Have you been able to change that?
Nixon: The maintenance department has managed to increase the response times overall since the initial surge of users. While we know that the app means we'll get more reports, it also creates efficiencies. For example, we can distinguish between city and county roads before going out to a site. So the potholes are filled by the appropriate agencies without wasted trips.
Pothole.info: Why do you suppose it was so successful so quickly?
Nixon: The great thing about the pothole mapping app is that it removes complication for the user. Now instead of making a phone call or visiting a website, a citizen using the mobile app can report the problem from the point and moment of discovery. This simply leads to much more community participation.
Pothole.info: Your app was developed specifically for Portland by your department. How much did it cost and do you think you have an advantage with your own?
Nixon: Actually, we have an app development specialist here on staff who was already working on a mobile mapping app. He managed to build this in his own time, so the costs were quite minimal. We like how this app works because it is designed to marry into the existing workflow. We have our in-house ticketing system for processing and completing work orders and it is now a seamless part of that.
Pothole.info: How many people use it and what do you think will happen in your second winter pothole season?
Nixon: Between February and September 2010 we received 625 pothole reports. We added the Droid app in September and as of December 2010 we know that 7,000 apps have been downloaded. So we expect we will get more reports in this year – and we're ready.
Pothole.info: What has been the public's response in Portland and elsewhere?
Nixon: Both the media and citizen response is positive and favorable [media coverage was widespread, well outside of the greater Portland area]. It boils down to extensive citizen participation, which is good. We've made the software open sourced so other cities can take advantage of it, and several are.
Building pothole apps elsewhere
Indeed, there are many cities building their own phone apps, "Government 2.0" as some are calling it, to enable reporting of potholes and other matters. The general term for such apps that pull people together in a single cause is referred to as "crowdsourcing."
In Chicago, it's not the city itself but a candidate for city alderman who developed "Chicago Works," a place for involved citizens to report potholes, graffiti and broken street lights. The candidate receives the reports directly in her office, which she then forwards to the appropriate parties at the city. Why would a candidate do this? She's building a constituency of community support.
This is similar to what was described in an ABC News special report on March 29, 2010 regarding the convergence of politics and technology.
According to Brent Blackaby, an online political strategist in the story, mobile software keeps voters engaged with an elected official during his or her term, yet avoids crossing the line between governing responsibilities and campaigning. Elected individuals need "to communicate with the people that support them [to show] all the good things that the elected official is doing so that people are still connected," says Blackaby. Those voters are "still in the loop with what's happening. When it comes time for campaign season to begin again, you've got a strong base of support and a strong team of people online, you have grassroots support behind you."
Clearly, they don't call it pothole politics for nothing.
Certainly, the ability of a mayor and a streets department or state department of transportation to fix potholes in a reasonable period of time can make or break an election. So it might just be a matter of smart governance that a number of cities have similarly developed their made-for-there pothole reporting apps. Each city takes a slightly different approach:
Boston: As previously reported on Pothole.info, a full 8,500 phones had downloaded Boston Citizens Connect 2.0 by early 2010. National Public Radio interviewed Boston resident Heather Sears, who formerly went through the bureaucracy of reporting problems to city hall. Sears clearly embraces phone app technology in her personal campaign to clean up the city (the app also includes graffiti reporting). "My graffiti picture is going to the dude who's going to fix the graffiti!" she says. "Directly to the dude! And that feels good."
Sandy Springs, Georgia: This Atlanta suburb launched its phone app, CoSSpotter, on December 1, 2010, which is available in iPhone, Blackberry and Android formats. And you thought they didn't get potholes in Georgia? This case shows such an app can be applied on a very local basis.
San Antonio, Texas (Bexar County): The app is called YourGOV, and it allows reporting of both potholes and roadkill (Armadillos, one assumes). The city worked with software developers CarteGraph who, according to Bexar County Engineer Renée Green, P.E., "It's a real change for an industry that typically lives by the Big Chief tablet and No. 2 pencil. This helps us be more efficient."
Los Angeles County and San Bernadino (California) County: With a population of 10 million and more streets, highways and roads than movie starlets, the CitySourced app launched in November 2010 and is usable on iPhone, Blackberry and Android formats. With so many convertibles and drivers on cellphones – and one of the most pothole-ridden cities in the country – one can only imagine how busy the county highway department will be as more and more people download the free app (most civic apps are provided without charge or are very inexpensive).
Long Beach, California: Named "Go Long Beach," this smartphone app allows citizens to report road, sidewalk and wall (graffiti) damage, but will eventually include broken water fountains in public parks, illegal dumping, missing street signs, overgrown weeds and sidewalk damage. "The 'Go Long Beach' App helps keep our community safe, clean and beautiful," Mayor Bob Foster told the Long Beach Post. The city's Director of Public Works, Michael Conway, told the paper, "The app will help us be even more responsive, because the quicker we know about a problem, the quicker we can fix it."
Charlotte, North Carolina: "My Charlotte" launched in November 2010 and can be purchased through iTunes, with Blackberry and Android versions a bit later. The app applies to pothole reporting, graffiti and accidents that cause traffic tieups. Its development cost $100,000, but is part of a broader program development they call "Margaret," an avatar that can answer many questions from the city databases. Margaret will operate via interactive voice response.
There's no such thing as "hush hush sweet Charlotte" if there are potholes to fix. This town is ambitious – and a place to watch, because if it works it could take the relationship between citizens and cities to a whole new level.
National apps – and what it might add up to
Entrepreneurs everywhere are jumping on the app rush with just about anything that marries cellular mobility with a function. Pothole reporting is no different, with the introduction of at least three players: SaveMyTire.com, SeeClickFix and 311 Universal.
SaveMyTire is the newest entry into the nationwide pothole reporting apps. Available for iPhone and Android platforms, it claims several functions that will make its reports more authentic. Those include a filtering method for identifying false reports. It also blocks multiple submissions by the same smartphone in the same geographical area (to prevent one person trying to scream attention for their particular pothole, we assume). SaveMyTire also requires "a certain threshold of reports on a given area before it is considered a genuine pothole location." Once reports reach that threshold, participating road maintenance departments are contacted via email.
It remains to be seen how well SaveMyTire manages to build up those relationships, while also getting the app distributed deeply enough such that the critical mass is reached to achieve effectiveness. But it seems to be working toward a goal of authenticity and veracity. If they are successful, it could be the killer app to define the category.
According to the online magazine Drivers.com, "the real benefits of [pothole reporting apps] lie in the ability to create 'neighborhood groups' and 'watch areas' to monitor issues and get feedback on results. In other words, it's entirely conceivable that individuals will take on pothole reporting as a mission, perhaps in teams, where such individuals will alleviate the workload of city, county and state employees who are otherwise responsible for identifying where the problem areas are.
That's the good news. The bad news might be that some neighborhoods or roads will get disproportionate attention because they are well organized, while others – perhaps where economics cuts into smartphone availability – get less. But given the free nature of these apps, and the likely full distribution of advanced cellular product availability, this problem will likely diminish over time.
SeeClickFix is another national pothole app that heeds this idea of community involvement. In fact, its tagline is "Power to the Community." There is a Community Groups page on the service's website that encourages volunteers to use SeeClickFix to "amplify their voices…by helping community leaders find and connect with others who care" via the app. Members of the community can post a head shot and earn civic points for reporting potholes, other pavement issues, graffiti and failed traffic control features (broken or missing lights and signs). The site has been up at least since 2008 and shows signs of a developing community with many members.
311 Universal enables citizens to shoot and send images and GPS coordinates for any kind of city problem that would otherwise be reported on a 3-1-1 non-emergency line. According to developer Steve Barham, reporting anything from vandalism to potholes will help cities and police departments to notice patterns that lead to better preventive law enforcement.
But as is abundantly clear, just recognizing and reporting a problem doesn't get it fixed. There are funding concerns across the board with regard to street repairs. This may limit what crews and materials are available for the "fix" phase of the workflow.
On the other hand, the political impetus to respond to constituents may be what drives success with pothole apps. The nation's roads are deteriorating faster than they are currently being repaired due to budget limitations. So citizen ire and subsequent reporting can only grow over time.
Consequently it likely will become very hard for elected officials to ignore the increasing number of pothole app reports. From that it's not hard to envision the net effect to be smoother roads – proving a real, quality-of-life benefit can actually result from gee-whiz technology.

Citizen Pothole Reporting Via Phone Apps Take Off, But Can Street Maintenance Departments Keep Up?

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Visit two websites allowing drivers to pin-point potholes in their area.
 

<h3>Pothole City</h3>
<a style="background-image: none;" href="http://www.potholecity.com/" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://www.pothole.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/pothole-city-e1271131790912.jpg"></a>
<a href="http://www.potholecity.com/" target="_blank"> 
Visit Pothole City</a>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 25px;">
<h3>Mark the Potholes</h3>
<a style="background-image: none;" href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/013009_pothole/" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://www.pothole.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/mark-the-potholes-e1271131775554.jpg"></a>
<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/013009_pothole/" target="_blank"> 
Visit Mark the Potholes – Boston.com</a>
</div>

Pothole Plotters

Quaker State motor oil recently began a marketing campaign asking consumers “Who has the world’s worst commute?” Forgiving their willful ignorance to include Cambodian motorbikes and Parisian pedi-cabbers, Americans have apparently come forward with some horrific feats of daily strife. Twenty-seven miles in two hours another with forty in three. Ridiculous mileage – years spent motionless in traffic.
In a 2008 survey the worst commute belonged to the city of motorized angles, Los Angeles. These pavement grinders spend the majority of their day wafting smog into their lungs on their way to Universal studios, or in gridlock on their way to greet family members at John Wayne International Airport – an airport named after a man primarily known for riding a horse. Los Angelenos averaged 93 hours a year stuck in traffic.
The third worst commute in the country was the DC-metro area, a bureaucrat-rich web of roads that includes Maryland, Virginia, and parts of West Virginia. Like quicksand commuters the streets tighten their grip on commuters looking to wiggle free, most eventually finding themselves even more delayed and frustrated as they look to escape I-95 and blaze a trail through suburban back roads. Nowhere in the DC Metro area is this type of navigational freestyle visible than on the side streets of Northern Virginia.
Many of the roads now used by commuters to find their way home to dinner are being overused and under repaired. The smaller side roads, originally built for light traffic on weekends are being used as thoroughfares, causing the pavement to gap, rot, and pothole. In Northern Virginia who’s state is wealthy enough for repairs yet large enough to forget precincts, the problem is more pronounced.
<blockquote>Potholes, fissures, and cracks in the road’s surface are being exploited by the expansion experienced in colder winters and warmer summers.</blockquote>
Potholes, fissures, and cracks in the road’s surface are being exploited by the expansion experienced in colder winters and warmer summers. The asphalt on side roads – which cost anywhere from $1 million to $30 million per mile – turns into a crumbled mess when the traffic from Interstate 95 spills onto roads meant for weekend grocery shopping and church Sundays; with tax revenue’s plummeting it’s more difficult to improve the increasingly used, yet historically less- important side roads.
In Fredericksburg, a historic Virginia town 50 miles south of the nation’s capitol, roads have been depreciating for decades. Local commuters complain about water-filled potholes that alligator and split apart. Many of their complaints are in response to the increased traffic that has sputtered south from D.C. and into an ever-expanding urban sprawl.
Population increases in new areas have forced politicians to take note of necessary improvements. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia in 2009 has addressed the issue, as has the Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Bob McDonnell. Each plans to redirect funding from state coffers into transportation costs, with McDonnell stating on his Web site, “To attract business and jobs to Virginia, we need to make it easier for citizens to get to work, and for goods to get to the market.” Despite federal desires for increased spending in alternative energy sources and transportation options the need for dependable roads has only increased in the Commonwealth, and the next Governor would be well served to take notice – better roads means happier constituents.
For the past ten years northern Virginia’s rapid expansion has caused many in the community to take note of long-term construction projects and their cost. In 1996 when Jim Gilmore, a Richmond Republican, ran for the governor’s office his platform was a simple extension of Reagonomics – decreased spending on non-essential government programs and fewer taxes. To win support for his measures his campaign turned from one of broad political terms to an easy to repeat political slogan, “Eliminate the Car Tax.” In Virginia as in several states around the country, including California, residents were forced to write a check at the end of the year for a small percentage of their cars worth. In some families, this yearly hit could be several thousands of dollars, and as much as American’s hate taxes taken out of their paycheck, they despise writing the check even more. While the Democratic Lt. Governor Don Beyer saw this policy as detrimental to Virginia’s fiscal future and demanded Gilmore show how he planned to balance the budget, voters turned their attention to Gilmore and granted him the Governor’s mansion in a not-that-close election.
Beyer may have been right. Residents of Virginia waited as the vaunted Mixing Bowl – where I-95 meets I-395 and I-495 came (often) crashing together – took almost a decade to construct. Now completed the Springfield skyline is littered with the spaghetti of overpasses, merge lanes and green interstate signs. The financial impact was enormous. At an estimated final cost of $676 million the transportation project meant to keep travelers moving on the highways and avoid using the side roads to avoid traffic, may have helped bust the state budget in 2009. The seven-stage project was completed in July of 2007, but with the population continuing to crawl south, the engineers might have underestimated the number of cars using the freeway, which could result in more mixing bowls, and more $600 million construction projects.
As the road construction costs have mounted in Virginia the state has been forced to make deeper cuts – almost 10 percent across the board with the exception of most education funding. The future health of Virginia roads will depend largely on the taxation of commuters and residents enjoying the roads. With repair costs increasing and family incomes dropping; potholes, cracks and bumpy 30-miles commuted to the office might be bad enough to draw the attention of commuters, politicians and Quaker State alike.
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/worst-commutes-america-biz-cx_ee_1219worstcommutes.html">http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/worst-commutes-america-biz-cx_ee_1219worstcommutes.html</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_Interchange">Springfield Interchange #42BA60</a>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/10/31/gov.va/">AllPolitics – Car Tax Op#42BA4C</a>

Virginia Potholes

Chicagoans like to gripe and complain about winter weather and its close companion, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJYeZ6lfydU">potholes</a>. But being hardy Midwesterners, we are able to take the bad with the good. We always find the upside.
Two consecutive seasons, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, broke a decades-long string of relatively mild winters, with cumulative snowfalls at levels not seen since the early 1980s. Snow accumulations for both years were about 20 inches above average – about 55 inches versus 30-35 inches in “normal year” – a seasonal factor that initially grabs most public attention. Snow fouls up commutes, causes backaches, slip-fall accidents and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). Sometimes the grim reaper carries a snow shovel.
But it’s the potholes that linger, long after the last snowflake melts.
These street craters actually result less from snow and more from temperature fluctuations. The net results of potholes, however, are nothing but a downward spiral for municipal and personal finances. Potholes are expensive for everyone – the city, county, state and federal government each shell out millions for repairs, while individual car owners pay the price in flat tires, damaged rims, wheels, alignment, broken axles and cracked catalytic converters. Mechanics interviewed by local television news reporters express regret that they’e so busy with repairs in winter, and no one believes them.
Still, we focus on the positive. After two years of exceptionally rough riding conditions, Chicagoans are learning to navigate like stunt drivers. Further good news: no one complains when a street is being resurfaced or altogether reconstructed. A few weeks of inconvenience, dust and smelly asphalt trucks results in a silky-smooth road, a pure joy to traverse. And the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) informs us that Chicago doesn’t even rank in the top twenty worst cities for “rough road” conditions. Who knew? To top it off, the winter of 2008-2009 included pure political theater, a public dialog between Mayor Richard M. Daley and KFC, the fast fried chicken restaurant company. The chicken chain offered to fund our pothole repairs as part of a marketing campaign.
It doesn’t help that certain high profile people in Chicago have had their own encounters with potholes, enough to damage their vehicles – and report them on the evening news. ABC affiliate WLS-TV’s own investigative reporter, Chuck Goudie found a “super hole” while driving on the heavily traveled Congress Parkway ramp leading to Wacker Drive. The station tracked it for two weeks, waiting for city repair crews and reporting on the many vehicles that sustained damage in that time period.
<blockquote>Yes, the pothole situation in Chicago can actually be entertaining. Just be careful about how you describe that to the guy who needed $2700 in repairs to his Lexus due to a nasty crevice on Lake Shore Drive.</blockquote>
In December 2009, suburban Palatine’s Director of Public Works Andy Radetski twice hit a pothole on I-55 near Bolingbrook. The same pothole, two days in a row. Not surprising, the issue was prioritized by his own city’s department, he says.
Yes, the pothole situation in Chicago can actually be entertaining. Just be careful about how you describe that to the guy who needed $2700 in repairs to his Lexus due to a nasty crevice on Lake Shore Drive.
Money fills [some of] the holes 
As is easily imagined, potholes cost money – to municipalities and individuals. Seeing as how most individuals are taxpayers, that means most of us pay twice. Chicago Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch is among several journalists who track the devolution of streets for the paper and its readers. He reports some key statistics on the costs of potholes and street maintenance overall:
<ul type="disc">
<li>Chicago has millions of potholes, according to Chicago Transportation Commissioner Tom Byrne</li>
<li>Between 6,000 and 8,000 holes are repaired daily in the winter and spring</li>
<li>The city’s annual budget for pothole repair is $12 million</li>
<li>Longer-term repairs include street resurfacing and street reconstruction. For four-lane arterial streets, it costs $1.3 million per mile resurfaced and $8.4 million to reconstruct the same distance.</li>
<li>Resurfaced roads are expected to last ten years; reconstructed roads are good for 20 years before repairs are necessary. This assumes normal wear and tear conditions.</li>
<li>The State of Illinois provides $42 million to Chicago for resurfacing.</li>
<li>The federal government is providing Chicago with $150 million in highway repair funds, plus an additional $86 million in federal economic stimulus funding.</li>
</ul>
Doing the math for you, a million potholes fixed at a rate of 8,000 per day means it would take 125 days to fix them all, which, accounting for weekends means about 21 weeks for full repair. That assumes no new potholes, which is, of course, deluded. Commissioner Byrne said millions, so the 21 weeks is a fantasy. On the money side, paying for longer-term fixes with federal and state funds, $278 million combined, we could get 213 miles of road resurfacing or 33 miles of road reconstruction. Chicago has about 3,800 miles of roads, every inch of which experience the freeze-thaw conditions of winter. It brings to mind Titian’s painting of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus">Sisyphus</a>.
This is not a good time for increased spending. The city’s overall budget deficit might grow $250-$350 million by the end of 2009, according to the city of Chicago official <a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalContentItemAction.do?contenTypeName=COC_EDITORIAL&amp;topChannelName=HomePage&amp;contentOID=537043436">website</a>. Some expenses are discretionary, but the flow of people and commerce impeded by adverse weather conditions is not much of an option.
To the rescue, sort of, came Chicken Man. More specifically, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). The Louisville, Kentucky-based company launched a contest in March to fill potholes in four cities plus its hometown in exchange for publicity and branding on some of the filled holes. Mayor Daley – whose own Lincoln Town Car got a flat tire this winter from a giant pothole on Pulaski Road – reacted by negotiating publicly. City Hall reporter Fran Spielman quotes him saying, “If they give us $25 million or $30 million, we’d be glad to look at it. I want the money up front. I’ll take $50 million if you give me $50 million.” When later informed that KFC logos would be painted on top on the street repairs themselves, Daley upped the ante. “It all depends if they’re ready to give 50, 60, 70, 80 million. There’s a lot of potholes out there.”
Chicago residents don’t mind seeing hizzoner (his honor, the mayor) play hardball. The city’s sell-off of the parking meters to a private company, and camera-caught red-light-runner ticketing, are already making a big dent into residents’ finances.
Alas, KFC’s public relations firm representative tells us the company selected Warren (Ohio), Topeka (Kansas), Chattanooga (Tennessee) and hometown Louisville to receive $3000 grants for pothole repairs. No strings were officially attached to the funding, however stencils and spray chalk of the KFC logo were provided to municipalities to use at their discretion. When asked about the differential between $3000 and Mayor Daley’s interest in $80 million, the KFC rep, himself based in Chicago, obliged by saying, “Hey, this is Chicago. Go big.” The company says it may reprise the program next winter due to a strong response from mayors, municipalities and the media.
Pay through your own nose
The transparency of municipal budgets shows us one side of the costs. But the costs to individuals whose cars are impaired from moonscape maneuvers are as elusive as they are maddening. AASHTO’s “Rough Roads Ahead” reports that additional vehicle operating costs (repairs) in Chicago due to rough conditions are $333 per year. This compares to $638 in New York and $746 in Los Angeles. So it could be worse. (Why so high in LA? Warm weather places like this city, Honolulu, Sacramento and San Diego all have rough roads and high car repair costs, largely attributed to poor maintenance funding.)
Where do those costs come from? Consider the following repairs for a 2005 Toyota Camry:
<ul type="disc">
<li>Wheel alignment $85-$109</li>
<li>Catalytic converter replacement $641-$1154</li>
<li>Tire replacement: $61-$77 per tire</li>
<li>Wheel/rim repair/replacement: $82-$157 per wheel</li>
</ul>
Perhaps the reader can beat the average by learning where his or her catalytic converter is located. With that knowledge combined with quick reflexes, the driver might avoid hitting that expensive part of the car. Or, maybe Chicago’s lower cost average for repairs indicates that we’ve largely mastered such skills.
2010 and beyond
So, do the winters of 2007-2009 predict anything about potholes in the future? Climate change predictions are all over the map – some places will get warmer, others cooler, some wetter and other drier. It bears repeating that weather and temperatures have less to do with actual road conditions than municipalities’ allocation to road building and repair.
Which boils it down to budgets and political will. Both of these are affected by public opinion and activism. Demands for better road repair and general maintenance need to trump other priorities, which renders it an open question.
But as everyone knows, politics in Chicago never ceases to be entertaining. Pass the chicken, Mr. Mayor?

Cities & Communities

Can One Chicago Pothole Miracle Be Repeated?

Pothole repairs confound Illinois cities, counties

Citizen Pothole Reporting Via Phone Apps Take Off, But Can Street Maintenance Departments Keep Up?

Pothole Plotters

Virginia Potholes

Chicago Potholes 2009: An aftermath of damage, money and fried chicken