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Posted on 02/21/2010 7:37:32 PM PST by Libloather
Pittsburgh Pothole Patching To Cost Big Bucks
Public Works Expects Winter Weather Will Use Up Budget
UPDATED: 6:55 pm EST February 19, 2010
PITTSBURGH -- The harsh winter weather is causing potholes to pop up all over the Pittsburgh area -- and the problem is expected to continue as large amounts of snow melt and the temperature changes over the next few months.
"This winter is wreaking havoc on our road surfaces," PennDOT spokesman Jim Struzzi said Friday. "All the moisture you see that came down with the snow now has seeped into the road surfaces, and as temperatures are warming up during the day, freezing again at night, it's creating potholes everywhere."
Pittsburgh's Director of Public Works, Rob Kaczorowski, has crews patching potholes in the city. He estimates that he has $10 million budgeted for street paving this year, and he told Channel 4 Action News that he expects the full amount will be used.
Outside the city, PennDOT crews in District 11 were taking advantage of Friday's sunshine before the next storm hits. They were busy filling potholes on Route 50, near the Allegheny-Washington county line.
PennDOT said the cost of snow removal is OK for now, but if they have to go over the budgeted amount of $15.5 million, it will cut into money that's set aside for paving roads in the summer.
"Right now, we're at about 75 percent of our winter budget," Struzzi told Channel 4 Action News reporter Bob Mayo. "We're in good shape right now, but we need winter to stop here very soon."
"What will ultimately happen is, if we do go over our budget, that money has to come from somewhere else. And inevitably, what happens is you're not able to pave as many roads in the summer as you would like, because you have to take some of that money to pay for this cost of this winter."
Pittsburgh Public Works said it will stay within its $10 million budget by targeting the city's worst pothole areas. The department has no plans to ask for additional money to patch potholes.
"What happens if you don't address a pothole -- that allows additional moisture to seep into that road surface and continue to create additional potholes, so you want to try to address them as quickly as possible," Struzzi said.
Other Yahoo shovel-ready headlines under 'potholes' -
City’s pothole-related claims spike
Exclusive: Tar very much for fixing road to nowhere
Road work ahead
Asphalt issues, early flag sparked fan riot in 1961
The last winter
Brunswick Road residents angry, worried about health after Muskegon County road project
On Tuesday, Holton Township voters will decide a 3-mil, 10-year tax for roads
Recent cold costly for government
County ponders return to gravel roads
State uses nearly all of snow budget
Joe Soucheray: Speeding? Who would be brave enough on our canyon-filled roads?
Edina ruffles rough road's residents
Council’s extra £500,000 to tackle pothole plague
Local company develops new solution for pothole repairs
County calls on snow gang
Midland County Residents Trying To Fix Pothole Mess On Their Own
Calls for pothole service to city increase following recent storms
Toledo dealing with popping up potholes
Mayor Says Council May Ask Her To Pay For Renovations, or Resign
Paved with Bad Intentions: Coming Sunday
Drop in SP revenues becomes obvious with potholes, weedy landscapes
Plain Speaking: It's time for the city government to get back to the basics
Safety fears over potholes outside Cockermouth massage business
Infrastructure gets shorted in stimulus funding
What happened to Columbia St. pothole fixes?
Potholes Leave Holes In Fort Worth's Budget
State budget woes likely to impact state of local roads
These days, mass transit gets warmer welcome
Giant dip on Monument Ave. under repair
City of San Bernardino…There’s an App for that
Torfaen tackles record potholes
Storm passes, but potholes just settle in
600 potholes fixed in a week
Crews working long hours to clear roads
Fixing roads with the Internet
Further service cuts likely in Central Bedfordshire
Clarksburg Able to Buy Salt Without Skimping Pothole Patches
Traffic jams today should mean less bumps in the road in the future
Walker County drivers say they're tired of dodging potholes
Snow Removal Costs Piling Up, Funds Dwindling
Winter weather leaves roads in bad shape
A pothole ate my car
POTHOLE PAIN: Potholes become money pits
Southampton highway superintendent asks for more money for road paving
Several Rounds of Winter Storms Create More Potholes
New team tackles South Lakeland's potholes
Paying for the snow
Audit finds Tacoma's asphalt plant saved $163,000 over 30 months
Nobis: Pitfalls and potholes at Daytona
‘Moisture is the enemy of pavement,’ MoDOT says
Classic bait and switch: They promise you better roads for higher taxes and what you get is more B.S. spending.
I have a cousin who’s an engineer for PennDot...I have it on good authority that in the past 10-15 years or so, the asphalt patches have been effected with a more “environmentally correct” mixture, which does not resist the freez-thaw cycles, and does not last anywhere near as long as the older materials used for road repairs.
Al Gore, is that you?
The roads look like they have been carpet bombed with all the pot holes. But we have landscaped medians in certain areas for looks and I guess to give the illegals a regular landscaping job.
As a matter of fact we have one such median in front of a newer medical building and approx. one hundred yards away the road is so bad that if don't slow down you can end up in a different lane.
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Back in the seventies, the City of Cleveland (under the “leadership” of the Boy Mayor Dennis “the Menace” Kucinich) announced one winter that they had an estimated 1,000,000 potholes in the City of Cleveland, and no money to fix them, so they advised people to just deal with it.
There was a Cleveland police unit patrolling down in The Flats late one night before it was developed, (and around the time the Cuyohoga River caught fire), and suddenly their windshield exploded. The cops bailed out of the car figuring they were under fire, but it turned out that a piece of the deck of the Superior Avenue bridge had fallen a couple of hundred feet and hit the hood and windshield of their cruiser. The bridge deck was so bad that bare rebar was exposed in more than one spot before it was repaired, and that was only one of many bridges in the area that would eat your tires in a minute. I-90 at that time was a joke because the pavement had deteriorated to badly in so many places in Northeast Ohio, and the State had no money to fix it.
A lot of that damage was a direct result of the nasty winters in the 1960’s and all the salt that was used in an attempt to keep the roads de-iced. Cars used to rot from the bottom up from all the salt and it was tough to keep a fender or a rocker panel on a car after a few years. But there was also virtually no maintenance done at all, other than a little cold patch tamped into a pothole that usually lasted until the next time the road got plowed.
That’s why I view global warming, if it exists at all, as a good thing, because I have no desire to go back to those days, although I see Lake Erie has frozen over for the first time in a long time. I’ll really worry when the Columbia River freezes again; it’s been since the 1920’s since you could drive a car across the river to Portland, and I think that is a very GOOD thing...
I grew up in North Dakota where winters are a lot harsher than they are here-- and generally a lot more snow as well. Potholes were plentiful there as well, but when they fixed them, they generally stayed fixed for several years.
Twin City roads are in the worst than they have ever been. The winter has been positively brutal on them. CarX and Midas are going to clean up. Millions and Millions (and lots of traffic delays) are going to be required to get the roads back to the shape they were in last fall.
In southern.... “Ohhhhh, did I do that? Let me get out my cellular and call you a wrecker....”
Some of the streets are way beyond patching. They need repaved.
“does not resist the freez-thaw cycles, and does not last anywhere near as long as the older materials used for road repairs.”
They learned a lesson from the turnpike commission.
and yet many of ancient Rome’s structures are still standing. They don’t want to do it right.
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