It\u2019s pothole season.<\/p>\n
And if it seems particularly brutal this time around, you can blame this winter\u2019s record snowfall and below-freezing temperatures.<\/p>\n
City streets are accustomed to taking a beating from the constant flow of hot rubber and tire chains on asphalt. The near-constant freeze-thaw cycles and water infiltration in the colder months exacerbate any imperfections. This wear and tear means that more drivers will spend more time avoiding these depressions in the roadways \u2014 also known as potholes \u2014 after the winter season.<\/p>\n
On average, it takes the city, which is one of the few in the country that operates its own asphalt plant, about two days to fill a pothole after it’s reported to 311. The city transportation department said it fills an average of more than 170,000 potholes annually and paves more than 1,150 lane miles.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this historic winter, we\u2019re ramping up repairs citywide to make sure every borough\u2019s streets are safe and smooth,\u201d DOT spokesperson Mona Bruno said.<\/p>\n
And the department’s work may be cut out for it.<\/p>\n
Nearly 13,000 pothole complaints have been received so far this year as of Tuesday, a 36% increase from the same time period last year, according to ananalysis of 311 data. More than 6,000 of those were made in Queens, followed by Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan and the Bronx.<\/p>\n
Urban policy experts said drivers should be especially careful as the city thaws out this spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe damage to the streets and roads and highways from a bad winter often don’t become fully apparent until the snow starts to melt and spring starts to arrive \u2014 that\u2019s when we\u2019ll see the worst of the damage,\u201d said Owen Gutfreund, a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College.<\/p>\n
Gutfreund \u2013 who heads the college\u2019s urban studies program \u2014 said the damage could even be worse because there\u2019s still a chance of below-freezing temperatures, and perhaps even additional snowfall, in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe material that gets used for properly filling potholes and repairing damaged surfaces requires warmer weather. It can’t be done in subfreezing temperature, or in near-freezing temperature,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the patches, if any, that get done now are really not very effective. So there will be this point when we can see how bad the streets are, but it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We build infrastructure without an eye for the maintenance\u2019<\/p>\n
Improvements to infrastructure are particularly pressing as the city faces an ongoing affordability crisis, with more people relying on public transit \u2014 or biking and walking \u2014 to get around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cracks in the asphalt can also occur in our sidewalks, and that can also create cracked, uneven and even broken sidewalks that just naturally create tripping hazards that are similar to potholes,\u201d said Michelle Deme, the digital communications coordinator at Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit advocating for pedestrians.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit released a comprehensive agenda of public policy priorities for the Mamdani administration, including greater street improvements.<\/p>\n
Gutfreund said he thinks DOT does \u201ca great job\u201d dealing with the city\u2019s potholes \u2014 but added that the agency is overmatched.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t have a political will to spend as much money on maintenance as we do on building shiny new things,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so we build infrastructure without an eye for the maintenance process and the maintenance costs, and then we underfund maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gutfreund proposes \u200aa constant inspection and repair process on all of the city\u2019s streets and roadways \u2013 rather than merely deploying a crew to fix a pothole when it\u2019s reported. But doing so, he said, is incredibly labor-intensive and expensive.<\/p>\n