City suffers huge bump in pothole numbers

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This article was published 25/11/2024 (335 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg has sunk to new depths when it comes to its pothole problem.

Crews filled in an unprecedented 357,131 potholes in 2024, a rise of nearly 115,000 from the 242,362 plugged in 2023, city figures show.

A city spokesperson said Mother Nature is partly to blame for the dramatic uptick in pothole management.

“Winnipeg experienced a substantial increase in both total rainfall and the number of days with significant rainfall,” Julie Horbal Dooley wrote in an email to the Free Press on Friday.

“The freeze-thaw cycles typical of Winnipeg’s climate exacerbate this problem, leading to the formation of potholes when water freezes, expands and thaws.”

Winnipeg saw 297 mm of rain over 29 days as the city thawed from the winter freeze, compared to 73 mm across 13 days in 2023.

By July, the city had already plugged nearly 180,000 potholes, almost twice as many as they had at the same point in 2023.

Horbal Dooley said the dramatic rise in rainfall presented several challenges, including increased water infiltration into the pavement, frequent repair interruptions and impact on repair materials.

“This year, many of the cold mix repairs failed sooner than in previous years due to the increased rainfall,” Horbal Dooley said. “The constant exposure to water prevents the cold mix from properly bonding with the existing pavement, leading to quicker degradation and the need for repeated interventions.”

The city uses a cold mix to repair potholes before the summer. While more pliable and easier to apply in colder temperatures, unfortunately cold mix is more susceptible to being washed away by rain.

“That said, even with hot mix, rain tends to weaken filled potholes if they do not have enough dry time to cure,” she said. “If it is not cured, rain with the traffic would push the filling materials out.”

The water also causes a weaker bond between the filling material and the pothole edges, leading to a failure if the material doesn’t set properly.

The city tries not to patch during heavy rainfall, but crews sometimes have to due to significant cratering. Sometimes, those holes need to be repaired again.

The hot mix provides a more permanent solution but is still not immune to water.

“Prolonged exposure to water can hinder the curing process, leading to compromised repairs,” Horbal Dooley said. “The reliance on cold mix asphalt in the earlier part of the year means that early repairs are more vulnerable to failure, especially in the wetter conditions experienced this year.”

The city couldn’t provide a breakdown of costs for pothole repairs in 2024 as it’s not something they track.

The 2024 service-based operating budget allocates $31.498 million for roadway construction and maintenance. This budget covers potholes, bridge deck repairs and boulevard maintenance.

“We just fix it because we have to,” Coun. Janice Lukes, deputy mayor and chair of the public works committee, said. “It’s a safety issue.”

To help get a grip on the situation, the city has been piloting cameras on Winnipeg Transit buses that, paired with software, help identify road concerns, such as potholes.

“You have a much better understanding of where the road is in its life cycle,” Lukes said. “That helps you determine what type of treatment to do. It’s a much more refined understanding of what’s going on the road and underneath the road.”

Lukes said that information helps the city better prioritize streets in need of repair.

“We’re doing some of the residential (roads), but we were focusing on the regionals and the collector roads that have the most traffic volume because we only have so much money, and we’re going to put it where the traffic is.”

Beyond that, Lukes said they need to lobby both provincial and federal governments for more funding.

“We have no money for any of this stuff,” she said.

A report to a standing policy committee meeting on Nov. 12 asked for an over-expenditure authorization for the public works department of $1.4 million for roadway construction and maintenance, which is “mainly the result of increased pothole patching operations.”

Meanwhile, MPI has seen more than double the pothole-related claims in 2024 compared to the previous year.

The most recent data from the insurance provider show they received 4,971 claims as of last Sunday, a substantial increase from the 2,438 claims made in 2023.

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March saw the most claims at 971, followed by 892 in May and 724 in April. The fewest claims, not including the incomplete month of November, was recorded in January with 89.

As of Sunday, 88 pothole claims had been registered for November.

The 2024 number, with six weeks to go before the calendar flips over, falls short of the record-high 5,395 claims made in 2022.

City data show they filled 242,365 potholes in 2022, and 242,362 last year.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

Every piece of reporting Scott produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.