City puts pothole-repair effort in overdrive on weather-walloped streets By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 6:04 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 16, 2024 Last Modified: 10:35 AM CDT Monday, Aug. 19, 2024 Updates

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The City of Winnipeg is diverting staff from other duties to repair a massive number of potholes this year, and more than 240,000 craters have been filled so far.

The city is now dedicating 14 crews, each with four to six workers, to the task after repeated freeze-thaw cycles and excessive rainfall wreaked havoc on roads.

The crews filled about 241,013 potholes between Jan. 1 and Aug. 8 of this year, an estimate based on the amount of materials used to fill the holes. The total includes some cracks that were repaired more than once after rain washed away filler material.

“I don’t recall the potholes ever being this bad in my duration being at city hall in the last 10 years,” said Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of the public works committee. “It was wicked.”

The number of repairs has surged far beyond repair counts during the same period of previous years, dating back to at least 2018. The year 2022 came in second, with 170,203 repairs during the same stretch.

City staff have devoted 59,100 regular hours and 10,963 overtime hours to filling the holes thus far this year, also seven-year highs.

Lukes (Waverley West) blamed the weather and aging infrastructure for the severity of the problem.

“It was a combination of the winter (freeze-thaw cycles), a wet, wet, wet spring and the age of our old infrastructure,” she said. “It’s like putting a filling in a rotten tooth.”

Filling the holes is an important safety issue, she said.

“Roads are a critical, critical part of our existence,” she said. “We can’t helicopter in everything.”

Lukes said the crews diverted to pothole duty normally do concrete work, including sidewalk slab replacements and curb repairs.

In 2023, the city estimates an average of 10 to 11 pothole crews were working at any given time, though exact numbers aren’t available, spokeswoman Julie Horbal Dooley said in an email.

Meanwhile, the city’s target timelines to fix potholes vary widely, ranging from within three days for a regional street in the winter to within 90 days for a residential street in the summer.

Lukes said weather is a key factor in the repair timeline.

Michael Cantor, the city’s manager of streets maintenance, said he expects some potholes will remain, which isn’t unusual.

“There are always some potholes that are left on the table because we just cannot get to them… We noticed that for the past few years, at least three, that pile of left 311 calls is bigger,” Cantor said.

The city typically fills all potholes on regional and collector streets, as well as those considered hazardous on residential streets, he said.

Soggy weather in May and June made repairs especially difficult.

“I don’t recall such a wet spring and early summer where we are struggling so much to catch up and repair,” he said, adding some concrete work is being delayed to focus on potholes, including some that may not be completed during this construction season.

“We’re losing that productivity on the concrete side. But we understand that the potholes are more important because the majority of them are really (linked to) safety maintenance.”

A River Heights resident who reported a deep pothole on Campbell Street in the spring, which took months to repair, welcomed the added attention.

“We’ve got infrastructure that can’t be maintained and, unless you fix it correctly, it’s just going to keep deteriorating,” said John Embil, adding the city should increase its annual pothole-repair budget.

“Congratulations to the city for taking it seriously.… Hopefully, next year it won’t be so bad or they’ll be on it right away,” he said.

John Vernaus, owner of Vernaus Auto Body, said he’s still seeing “a steady flow” of vehicles that require repairs after an unpleasant encounter with a pothole.

As of Monday, Manitoba Public Insurance had received 3,209 pothole-related claims in Winnipeg this year. That exceeds full-year claim numbers since at least 2019, with the exception of the 4,451 in 2022.

In an email, spokeswoman Kristy Rydz said drivers typically report fewer pothole-related claims in the final months of the year, beginning each September.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

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