cc/Jacob Ode
As the snow is cleared from roads, the damages of the winter present themselves. With the warming seasonal temperature, it’s the time of year to expect more potholes while driving around.
“As pavement ages, it becomes brittle and cracks. And once it cracks, moisture can seep through the cracks and get in underneath the pavement and into the granular base area. When that freezes, what it does is pop the asphalt out,” explains John Parsons, Division Manager of Transportation and Roadside Assistance for London.
The standards for a pothole are not extreme. Parsons says the average size in need of attention is the surface area of a piece of paper, eight centimetres deep. Depending on where the road depression is, the City of London is provincially obligated to take care of it in a mandated time.
The chart for pothole maintenance timelines via Ontario’s Minimum Maintenance Standards
Pothole maintenance is also preventative. During the spring months, Parsons will have multiple crews all over the city filling potholes while also on the lookout for more.
“If we’re out there patching something that size and we something beside it that’s eventually going to turn into a bigger pothole, we’ll patch that too.”
With potholes being a product of fluctuating temperatures, they may become a more frequent issue. While aging roads are a contributing factor to an increase in potholes, the changing climate certainly doesn’t help.
“It would be safe to say that as you have more degree days that hover around zero, you’re going to see more potholes,” explains Parsons. “And within the last…10 years we’re definitely seeing more of that, where temperatures are hovering around zero.”
While Parsons and his team do their best to address all potholes, they still rely on help from the public. He urges people to use London’s website to report a pothole. “You can zoom in on the map, touch the map and it lets us know. With that, with the number of people reporting around the same location, we know it’s an area we need to tend to.”
A 2016 study done by the Canadian Automobile Association estimates Canadians spend over $1.4 billion per year on vehicle damage caused by potholes.
