At least one city councillor says he’s not fielding as many pothole complaints as in years past, but other Edmontonians will tell you the roads are just as bad — if not worse — than usual.
The service manager at Integra Tire and Auto Centre has already booked “quite a few” pothole repair jobs.
“The typical damage is ruptured tire sidewalls and lots of bent wheels, but we have started to see some damaged suspension components like control arms and tire rods already,” said Chris Pouliot.
He said, generally, Edmonton roads are not great.
“It’s pretty horrible. There’s potholes every road you go on, and, in a lot of cases, they’re unavoidable.
“There isn’t much you can do but anticipate hitting it and grit your teeth and hope it didn’t break anything.”
Pothole damage can come with a range of price tags — anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand, depending on what’s been affected.
“Anytime you are able to slow down safely and try to move over a little bit to ease the impact, that’s definitely better for the car,” Pouliot said.
He also suggested reporting the hole to 311 — whether or not your vehicle is damaged by it — to hopefully speed up the city responding to it. After all, it’s still early in pothole season.
“My gut tells me we are well ahead of what we are normally used to and this is going to be a pretty terrible pothole season,” he said.
Edmonton resident Harry Mahand said he had to retire his old sedan because of pothole damage.
“The roads are really bad,” he said. “I see potholes everywhere, especially residential areas. I don’t know if they’re not fixing it or what.
“It’s just very frustrating now because we pay so much taxes (and) then we see there’s potholes everywhere.”
Still, Coun. Andrew Knack believes the overall pothole situation has improved in the last several years.
“There was a pretty substantial change in funding to arterial roadway reconstruction in 2015,” he said.
“We had almost peaked out at 20 per cent of our arterial roads (were) in poor conditions. Thanks to a substantial investment that started back in 2015 — we more than doubled the budget — we’ve managed to bring the overall condition of arterial roads from close to 20 per cent in poor condition to 11 per cent in poor condition.”
Knack says he’s also getting fewer complaints about potholes now compared to when he first became a councillor.
“This is now, probably, I’d say the third or fourth year where we’re seeing a lot of great work around responsiveness to potholes.”
However, in March 2022, the city said it had received 1,779 pothole notifications for the year so far compared to the 526 it had received by March 2021. For 2022, Edmonton had a budget of $10.3 million for asphalt road maintenance. It was approximately the same in 2021.
So far this year, city crews have filled about 5,000 potholes. This time last year, they’d filled about 1,600.
“The potholes we’ve filled year to date are because of the availability of the crews… and also Mother Nature has allowed us the opportunity,” said Caitlin Zerebeski, the city’s director of infrastructure maintenance.
“Last January, the weather was quite cold with a lot of snow,” she said. “This January, we did have a bit warmer weather to allow our crews to be on the road, doing proactive repairs, responding to 311 reports.”
LISTEN: Caitlin Zerebeski, director of infrastructure maintenance for the city, with J’lyn Nye on 630 CHED Afternoons
Zerebeski said potholes are just a reality in places like Edmonton.
“We’re a northern climate. We get that freeze-thaw cycle.”
But Edmonton has dedicated pothole crews and repair them year-round and it has taken a more proactive approach recently.
“We’re really making sure that those dedicated crews are focusing on potholes before they become problems, but also making sure we address them before they become too severe. That’s a big change in our program in the last couple years and we’re seeing that benefit grow.”
She said the city has received fewer 311 pothole complaints this year than last.
Crews are also using new technologies.
“Three years ago, we got new asphalt trucks — the newest technology — that have a higher capacity so we’re able to carry more asphalt with our crews which allows us to do things quicker,” Zerebeski said.
“We also have the asphalt patchers which came out — new technology where it’s using asphalt chips and emulsion to be able to proactively fill those potholes in the roadway.”
“The city crews are really doing their best trying to adjust based off weather patterns, switch between addressing snow and fixing roads. A lot of the equipment is the same equipment, a lot of the staff is the same staff,” Knack explained.
“While we didn’t increase the budget to the level I might have hoped for, the budget was increased, and more permanent staff have been hired in this area, which I think will also help.”
Crews responding to 311 pothole complaints are also taking a broader approach.
“They’re trying to scope out the general area to see where they can do a number of them at the same time — even if not all of them have been reported — it’s more efficient.”
You can report a pothole online or through the 311 app.
Last year, city crews filled more than 500,000 potholes.
The city says crews inspect all potholes they find or that citizens report, which are then prioritized based on safety (size, location, traffic volume). High-priority potholes will be inspected within 24 hours and repairs will be completed within two days, the city website says. Lower-priority potholes will be inspected within five days and repaired within a month.
Drivers can also submit a pothole damage claim to the city for evaluation, during which the city will “assess its level of responsibility for an incident.”
The city reviews claims when damage occurred on a public roadway within Edmonton city limits which was the responsibility of the city.
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