Athens starting to resemble a moonscape with all the potholes
By Stephanie Laird
March 24, 2008
Potholes – annoying and menacing hazards that are created by cold temperatures and moisture – pock roadways throughout Athens and Athens County this time of year. City of Athens street maintenance crews recently began the daunting task of filling these craters based on a repair priority agenda determined by a complex pavement rating system.
Athens Street Director Andy Stone noted that potholes emerge following the winter months, and then succinctly explained why. “Water from snow and rain gets down in the cracks in the pavement, then expands when freezing temperatures hit and cause the bond between the layers of pavement to break,” he said. “Then traffic, or occasionally snow plows, shear the pavement chunks off, creating a ‘pothole’.”
Ideally, the best time of year to begin rectifying the surface damage arising with freeze/thaw cycles, is in April or May, Stone said, “once it is warm enough for hot-mix asphalt batch plants to being operating, and the weather is warm and dry enough to keep the filling material sticky.”
The pothole repairs currently going on around town, that are “everywhere and never-ending” according to Stone, are done with cold mix, which differs in composition from hot mix, in that a solvent is added to the mix in order to allow the material to remain malleable despite cold temperatures.
While cold mix is a less-effective filling agent because it doesn’t tend to stick or bond to pavement as well as hot mix, often it’s necessary to start pothole repairs in March with this filling material, said Stone, and then go back and seal those areas with hot mix when it becomes available in April.
Pothole repairs aren’t as pricey as the process might suggest; according to Stone, the department pays about $80 for a ton of cold mix, which is capable of filling 12 to 15 cubic feet of potholes. He estimates the average pothole requires around a half a cubic foot of mix, which works out to less than $5 spent on fixing each pothole before labor costs are factored in.
Roadways that are more susceptible to structural deterioration are typically made of “older pavement that is poorly drained,” qualities describing a large part of the city’s roadways, according to Stone. These historic problems are especially pronounced on the west and the near-north sides of town, where many of the streets were laid after the houses were built, so they had to be constructed in the space between houses, said Stone. Piecemeal drainage systems also exacerbate the occurrence of potholes in these areas, such as on Mound Street and Granville Avenue.
“All of the pavement in town is rated on a complex 0-100 scale based on the type and extent of distress annually,” Stone said, after being asked whether certain parts of town will have pothole repair priority. “That is how I direct my repaving budget.”
Some of the types of pavement factoring into this rating system include flexible, composite, jointed concrete, and a few instances of continuously reinforced concrete pavement. The extent of distress on each is rated accordingly. Additionally, pavement distress is evaluated by severity and extent levels. Other factors influencing the priority of the pothole repair include location and possibility of vehicle damage, which increases in high-speed areas.
In addition to rating pavement types in town based on the type and extent of distress incurred on an annual basis, a work-order system is in place for addressing random maintenance tasks, explained Stone. This allows the Street Department to respond to citizen complaints about potholes and other problems.
“I wish I received more (complaints about potholes around town),” said Stone, adding that he would like to know the location of potholes that are bothersome to residents, since only the areas that have been identified as problematic are eligible for repair. Citizens may call the Street Department office at 592-3343 to alert them of the pothole or they can fill out the pothole report form found on the city’s Web site — www.ci.athens.oh.us/streets/pothole.html.
In isolated cases, the city of Athens may be responsible for damage done to vehicles resulting from striking a pothole, said Stone, if the particular pothole has been reported to the department and it has failed to do anything about it for several days. Usually, though, the motorist is responsible for any damage incurred. If a motor vehicle is damaged by a pothole that is a known nuisance to the Street Department, motorists can follow a procedure for petitioning the city for assistance with the repairs. Motorists are required to submit their insurance and title information, and a police report of the incident, along with their request form. So far this year, only one motorist has been compensated for damage incurred on their vehicle by a pothole, according to Stone.
The Street Department’s annual budget fluctuates from year to year depending on the scope of structural and maintenance projects that are planned. Currently, Stone explained, there’s about $1.8 million in the street fund, which covers standard operations such as snow/ice control, and $750,000 in the street rehabilitation, state highway and wheel tax funds, which pay for personnel, equipment and materials, supplies and contracts for improvements, and so on.
The city spends between $300,000 and $2 million annually on roadway surface and structural repairs, said Stone, depending on the year and the number of projects. Last year, the city spent $520,000 on road repairs. Stone expects about half that much money to be spent this year because the city is trying to let the street rehabilitation fund grow for the Richland Avenue project.
The array of ongoing and anticipated street repair and improvement projects, in addition to regular street maintenance and surface repairs, will continue to wage war against the corrosive effects of old pavement and poor drainage on many of Athens’ roadways. Though pothole season is unavoidable, repair trucks are patrolling the streets daily, plugging up the pesky potholes on a priority basis.
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