As you read this, you, no doubt, are one of several million Americans who today ran across a pothole. The one you hit—if it was only one–may have even damaged your vehicle. But you are not alone; far from it! Every year 44 million drivers in the U.S. deal with the cost of repairs from hitting one of these unpleasant little nuisances. Potholes, no matter where you live, are a fact of life, an expensive fact of life.
The annual cost for repairing potholes, says AAA in a 2022 study, is around $3 billion dollars. Your cost for personal vehicle repairs, it says, weighs in at around $600. But all tolled, the national cost for vehicle repairs from pothole damage is a staggering $26.5 billion.
Local governments do what they can to fix their roads, but no matter what they do, they’re forever playing catch-up. For that, we can all thank Mother Nature and her four sea- sons, especially winter.
A pothole, science tells us, is caused when a crack appears on a road surface. The crack grows from the constant weight of vehicle traffic. When snow fills the crack, melts and freezes, it causes expansion. As this process repeats, the once imperceptible crack has suddenly grown into a hazard. A pothole. A municipal expense.
Pueblo is like a lot of places, though, said Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar. But the people he talks to think it’s a lot worse. They also might have a point. “In the last ten years,” said Gradisar, “we repaired virtually no roads in Pueblo.” Of course, COVID didn’t help things. Sales taxes in Pueblo and cities everywhere flatlined with the virus and municipalities were focused on other things. But that’s changing.
The infrastructure legislation signed by President Biden includes an estimated $110 billion in federal dollars for roads, bridges and a variety of transportation projects. States will be doling out funds for road repairs; municipalities will also pitch in with their own dollars.
The infrastructure legislation and the money to upgrade the city’s roads couldn’t come soon enough. “It’s our number one complaint,” said Pueblo native Gradisar. Cities like Pueblo will cobble together federal, state and local funds to get busy on this plague on public roadways. If the city can secure grants that can be used, they can fill in even more of these roadway pockmarks.
In Pueblo, one of the biggest efforts will be on the city’s Prairie Avenue, a street that carries thousands of drivers each day on a north-south path on the city’s south side. Once it’s done, there’s still a lot of work yet to be done on more than a few of the city’s other roads. Of course, road repairs aren’t just roads. “It’s our number one complaint,” “said the Mayor. “When we do the repairs, we have to make sure we do sidewalks and handicapped (ramps) are done, too. It’s expensive.” Other high priority infrastructure jobs include Pueblo Boulevard and both Highways 50 and 96, two roads central to traffic flow in the city but whose costs are shared with the state.
Pueblo is not unlike any city when it comes to road repairs, said Andrew Hayes, the city’s Director of Pueblo Works. Almost everyone wants a better road, whether it’s a main thoroughfare or a cul de sac. The plan, said Hayes, is to be as preemptive as possible.
In 2021, said Hayes, it was obvious that the city needed to address roads that were overdue for repairs. “The Mayor threw down the gauntlet,” he remembered. “This is your job.” Budgets for road repairs doubled and, said Hayes, “We’ve been able to get a lot of projects done.” “How do we pick the roads” to repair,” he asked. “It’s not always the worst (that get attention).” It depends on the types of repairs. “If you can maintain road integrity early enough,” costs go down.
A lot of things go into making decisions on what gets to the top of the ‘to do’ list, said Hayes. Things that go into making choices include “soil, water, sewer, sidewalks and utilities,” he said. Costs can quickly soar into the millions (of dollars).
While residents may think their street is overdue for repair, that doesn’t mean the city sees things the same way, said Hayes. “It’s not always the worst,” he said when setting repair agendas. It depends on types of repairs and, of course, the costs. But the whole idea, said the retired Naval officer and civil engineer, is to do repairs early “before the (conditions) get worse.” It’s not a novel idea that a municipality should be responsible for damage caused by a pothole to a vehicle, but it doesn’t always work out that way. You can file a claim against the local government, but it’s the municipal- ity that ultimately determines whether to settle or not. But filing a claim is always a good prerequisite to filing a civil lawsuit.
