Pothole repair push heats up with weather

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/05/2022 (1001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s pothole-pocked streets are being permanently patched as the weather warms, the city says.

“Crews began permanent, hot-asphalt pothole repair operations earlier this week,” public works department spokesman Ken Allen said Friday in an email.

The big push of major repair work is scheduled to last until mid-May, when crews will transition to routine pothole maintenance, Allen said, until the snow falls at the end of the year.

Melting snow revealed a massive number of potholes on city streets this spring. By late April, crews had repaired more than 33,000 potholes and 311 had received 3,323 pothole-related calls, the city said.

In March alone, Manitoba Public Insurance recorded 324 pothole-related claims — nearly six times as many as the 56 filed in March 2021.

The total number logged by MPI last year was 549; there had been 380 from January to March 2022.

While the weather was cooler and wetter, the street repairs had been temporary, as the cold-mix patching material was not adhering to road surfaces, a city spokesman said previously.