For drivers and highway departments alike, potholes are the pits.
After a particularly brutal winter, including a February that never inched above freezing, local highway crews are gearing up to repair road damage caused by winter weather.
Lysander Highway Superintendent Gene Dinsmore said the harsh winter caused more damage than usual.
“The frost was unusually deep this year,” he said. “To have this many cold days in a row for so long causes a lot of damage.”
Potholes occur when precipitation seeps through the pavement and sub-base of the road. Late winter and early spring cycles of freezing and thawing lead to “frost heaving,” in which the soil beneath the road swells. This causes the road surface to break, and a pothole is formed.
During cold weather, many highway departments use a cold mix of asphalt to patch potholes temporarily. Hot patch asphalt is used in the spring as a more permanent solution.
Chris Woznica, highway superintendent in the town of Cicero, said Cicero only recently took its hot patch machine out of storage.
“It’s going to take us a good four to six weeks,” he said of a timeline for pothole repairs. “The frost really raised havoc with the roads.”
Here’s what you can do to avoid pothole damage to your car:
-Make sure your tires are properly inflated.
-Leave plenty of room in front of your vehicle so you have time to safely swerve to avoid potholes and crashes.
-If you cannot avoid hitting a pothole, slow down instead of braking as you approach a pothole. Braking actually causes more damage in a pothole situation.
-When driving over a pothole, hold the steering wheel firmly to maintain control of your vehicle.
-Use caution and drive slowly when driving over a puddle or through the snow, which may be hiding deep potholes.
— Courtesy of allstate.com
Woznica said potholes and other post-winter repairs put the town behind on its plans to fix the roads because of rising costs for blacktop and road salt. February’s frigid temperatures delayed the work season for Cicero as well.
“Every year it gets worse because you fall farther and farther behind,” Woznica said.
Woznica urged residents to “just be patient.”
“We’re getting there,” he said. “We’ve got a very limited workforce and we’re doing the best we can.”
Other municipalities have taken a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to tackling potholes. Dinsmore said the town has been patching potholes throughout the winter.
“We’re not doing too bad because we prepared for it,” Dinsmore said. “We’ve not gotten into the warzone. Some towns are really a mess.”
Dinsmore said he has dispatched a crew of two to fix potholes for the past four weeks.
“Potholes, if you leave them alone, get worse,” Dinsmore said.
Dinsmore and Woznica both cited salt as a concern this winter as well. The cost of road salt has increased about 25 percent.
Cicero budgeted $425,000 for road salt in 2015, and Lysander budgeted $200,000.
“We probably set a record for road salt use,” Dinsmore said, adding that he hadn’t yet calculated the final amount the town used this winter.
Dinsmore said Onondaga County reviews bids for road salt contracts in August, so he will not know until September what the final cost will be.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can’t overcome,” Dinsmore said of road repairs. “It’s just going to take more money than we anticipated.”
To report a pothole on a state highway (including the Thruway) to the state Department of Transportation, call 800-POTHOLE (800-768-4653) or visit dot.ny.gov/programs/pothole-rpt.
