{"id":652304,"date":"2026-05-06T20:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/652304\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:59:12","slug":"montreal-unveils-new-strategy-to-tackle-pothole-crisis-promising-lasting-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/652304\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal unveils new strategy to tackle pothole crisis, promising lasting results"},"content":{"rendered":"

With drivers lamenting catastrophic road conditions and craters that keep coming back, Montreal is rolling out what it says will be longer-term fixes to its pothole problem.<\/p>\n

Officials say after eight years of underinvestment in equipment, the city is now trying to catch up with three new measures to ensure lasting repairs.<\/p>\n

An additional $1 million for boroughs that have already used their budget or received the highest number of 311 complaints;<\/p>\n

$1 million for manual patching contracts open to the market to ensure rapid and flexible responses during warm spells;<\/p>\n

and $125,000 targeted for manual patching on Notre-Dame Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying to the citizens: I know that we have frustrations,\u201d said Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada. \u201cI have them. I\u2019m in Montreal. I live in my city. But it\u2019s going to take time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada at a press conference providing updates on efforts to repair the potholes on city roads, on May 6, 2026 (Lola Kalder, CityNews)<\/p>\n

In just the past two weeks, the city says it\u2019s recorded between 10,000 and 12,000 potholes per week. At this pace, officials say they\u2019re on track to surpass last year\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n

In March, the city rolled out an initial action plan: negotiating 10 contracts and transferring $2.5 million to boroughs to speed up repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re opening this for many small contractors if they want to bid on this because we have to go manually and we\u2019re going to need a lot of people to do that,\u201d Martinez Ferrada said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A car drives over potholes on Pr\u00e9sident-Kennedy Avenue in downtown Montreal, May 6, 2026. (Lola Kalder, CityNews)<\/p>\n

One of those potential contractors, Saad Tekiout with Marquize Paysagement, recently went viral for taking matters into his own hands and fixing the potholes himself. Tekiout says it takes him about five minutes to fix a single pothole. He says the mayor reached out earlier this week to set up a meeting with him and his team about their work.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Montrealer repairs potholes for free in his spare time, but mayor says \u2018it\u2019s not your responsibility\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to do a lot of teams all around the city \u2013 east, north, west and south \u2013 all 24-hour work,\u201d Tekiout told CityNews. I don\u2019t want any \u2018I gonna take my coffee, I want to rest.\u2019 Work, work, work, work until the job is done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI salute the engagement as a citizen,\u201d said Montreal\u2019s mayor. \u201cBut let\u2019s do this in an orderly manner, in a way that is respectful for the job that we have to do as a city and making sure that we are coordinating the efforts of doing the potholes in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Saad Tekiout repairing a pothole in Montreal. (Submitted by: Saad Tekiout)<\/p>\n

On the ground, frustration is growing, with drivers saying the problem feels never-ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other day I was driving Sherbrooke Street, coming back from my sister\u2019s, and I saw a pothole. Luckily it was daytime. Because the depth, at night, it would\u2019ve been catastrophic,\u201d said Kennor Simon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re atrociously terrible. They need to be repaired,\u201d said Darren McCarrick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recently came from Africa and for me, it\u2019s unimaginable to see this here,\u201d added Ousmane Balde. \u201cPeople think Canada is paradise. I can\u2019t even take a photo and show this, they wouldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With drivers lamenting catastrophic road conditions and craters that keep coming back, Montreal is rolling out what it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-652304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}