Public works departments battle potholes
Drivers know to fear the menaces that creep out along the asphalt after a frigid winter storm, bringing irritation, inconvenience and flat tires along with them.
The monsters — or rather, potholes — that plague Pennsylvania travelers are nearly unavoidable in winter, especially in the wake of below-freezing temperatures.
Public works departments across Butler County say keeping up with potholes is a season-long task.
“All we do is throw some cold patch in them for the winter. That’s about all we can do for them,” said Bryan Blakeley, Center Township Public Works foreman. “If there’s no ice or water in them, we just throw some cold patch in, tamp them down, wait until springtime, and then fix them right.”
In the midst of winter, cold patching, or filling a pothole with asphalt or gravel material without heating it, is often the quickest solution to repair a pothole, but not always the most permanent one.
“We can get some hot mix and patch them that way once the asphalt plants open up (in spring),” Blakeley said. “But once the pothole forms and you put cold patch in it, when another storm comes, and you go over it with the plow, sometimes you pull that cold patch right out of the pothole. It is a temporary fix.”
Patching potholes is an ongoing task throughout the winter, Adams Township Public Works director John Hock explained, not one that is done exclusively at the end of the season.
“We go out as soon as we can to fix the holes because it’s just rough on cars,” Hock said Wednesday. “You can’t wait. That’s why we’re out patching today — there’s a lot of potholes popping up.”
Common causes
Potholes can start to crop up as soon as frost is on the ground, and tend to grow larger as time goes on, Hock explained.
“It heaves up the road, and then you go across with your plows, and it just breaks apart and falls out and causes a pothole,” he said. “And then it just gets bigger and bigger. Water gets in there, and then if it freezes, it just breaks out even bigger.”
Storms and more severe winter weather can exacerbate the problem, said Kelly Maurer, director of public works in Cranberry Township.
“The reason it’s happening right now is because of all the rain before the storm we had last week,” Maurer said. “The rain gets into the cracks and expands, and then we had that deep freeze, and now it is 45 degrees, so that freeze-thaw is what does it.”
Potholes can stem from more specific runoff sources as well.
“You’ve got to find out what is causing the pothole, if there’s water coming from somewhere, and you have to take care of that first, or it’s just going to keep happening,” Hock said. “You get runoff, or something heaved up somewhere. You pile up snow somewhere, it has to melt and go somewhere.”
Some parts of a road are more susceptible to damage than others. The tracks on the pavement where cars tend to drive more often have more wear and tear, especially on more heavily traveled roads, Maurer said. Runoff from snow piles often weakens the edges of the road as well, Hock said.
“It’s always in the tire lane, and then when your plow goes there, you get a big pile of snow on the right side of the road,” Hock said. “You don’t see as many potholes on the left side as you do the right side. And that’s where all your salt is running down as well, so it’s thawing out some of the cracks. “
Spring maintenance
Temporary cold patch eventually gives way to springtime maintenance, once the snow and ice is out of the way in the warmer months.
“We do preventative maintenance for our paving,” Maurer said. “We do seal those cracks during the summer months, that way the water doesn’t get into the pavement. We do seal coating and seal the pavement.”
Cranberry Township is divided into quadrants and the public works department rotates doing crack sealing one year and seal coating the next, she said.
“That just kind of seals it up, so that water doesn’t get in there to form the pothole, and that’s worked pretty well for us,” she said.
In the spring in Adams Township, Hock said, crews evaluate which areas need work and conduct road inspections.
“As soon as the frost gets out of the road, we’ll do a road inspection and check everything out, and see what roads are giving us all the problems and why,” he said.
The cycle repeats to some extent every winter, and public works personnel are often kept busy throughout the whole season.
“If anybody else knows how else to do it better, I wish they’d let me know,” Blakeley joked.
