BUFFALO, NY – Potholes are an annual bane to motorists in Western New York, leading to bumpy rides and in some cases, damaged vehicles.
However, this pothole season is shaping up to be perhaps the worst in recent memory, according to Buffalo Commissioner of Public Works, Parks and Streets Steven Stepniak.
“We had some tremendous differences in temperatures,” Stepniak told WGRZ-TV, noting the successive periods of subzero conditions, followed by brief thaws, followed by temperatures back into the deep freeze.
If streets and highways can be viewed as fields of asphalt, then the environmental conditions thus far have made them fertile to spawn a bumper crop of potholes.
“This causes tremendous stress on the pavement, so I would agree this could be a worse year than either of the two previous ones,” Stepniak said.
Last year’s relative lack of snowfall created a greater number of “bare pavement” days, allowing pothole crews more days to patch the holes as they surfaced.
The winter of 2017-2018, however, has been a different story.
And along with the decreased number of days for patching crews to effectively work due to snowfall, additional amounts of road salt laid down (22,000 tons thus far) has also served to exacerbate the annual nemesis, as salt can almost act like fertilizer for potholes.
Nonetheless, Stepniak reports crews have been laboring to keep up, and have already utilized 400 tons of cold patch to fill potholes in the city.
In addition, he said the city has received additional federal highway dollars for street maintenance this year, a considerable portion of which will be used to patch pot holes, particularly on busier arterial streets.
The best way to report a pothole, according to Stepniak, is through the city’s 3-1-1 customer service number.
“Those reports go directly to our crews and our crews can evaluate them,” said Stepniak. “And people should not assume that someone has already called in a particular pothole.”
Erie County has an online pothole reporting system.