Pot Holes The Long and Short Of It

The Advocate has an article on pot holes. yes, the week between Christmas and New Year’s would appear to be a slow news week. And yet the state is facing a huge budget crisis, and nary an interesting report on it. Why is that?

But onto pot holes. According to the Stamford supervisor of traffic and road maintenance and the article:

“We’ve been getting rain,” said�Doug Hoyt, supervisor of traffic and road maintenance. “That wreaks as much havoc as snow.”

Water seeps into cracks in the pavement and base material, which helps loosen it when cars, trucks and buses drive over it. The weak spot worsens with every vibration, creating a pothole.

And that’s before the temperature fluctuations that come with early winter.

“We’ve had a pretty bad freeze-thaw cycle going on,” Hoyt said. “It makes a mess of road surfaces.”

Water in the pavement, base and soil expands when it freezes, pushing material around and creating cracks. When the ice thaws, spaces are left. Tires go over it and a hole forms. The more traffic, the bigger the hole.

“We have nice weather, then it rains, then all of a sudden it’s below freezing again and the ground starts to heave,” Hoyt said. “Then the asphalt breaks.”

Funny thing is that the real issue here isn’t the weather and traffic but how we decide to spend to fix roads. Call it short-term vs. long term. With a�focus patching, no matter how innovative in how the patch gets done, the fix is temporary. Patches you see, don’t last beyond two to five years and only cover the surface while the foundations of our roads continue to deteriorate. It’s like treating skin cancer by applying makeup.

Fixing the underlying road is much more expensive. For example, cracked beds below the asphalt can run double the repair bill instead just simply resurfacing the asphalt. However, the resurfaced pavement will crack within three years whereas the roads with repaired foundations will last 20 years. You do the math.

A look at how many times certain roads have to be patched over time would at least sort our the priority of what roads need real repairs.