Saint John city crews have been on pothole patrol the past few weeks as this winter’s freeze-thaw cycle wreaks havoc on the roads.
“This is something we run into every year,” says city commissioner of public works & transportation, Mike Hugenholtz. “But this year, is the worst that we’ve seen in a number of years.”
There have been hundreds of complaints issued to the city about potholes recently, and so far there have been roughly 750 potholes patched by workers in the last two weeks.
“It was very cold, during that time we didn’t see a lot of potholes, but then you started to see it warm up a bit, and you’d have a lot of snow melting, a lot of moisture running on your roadways ,” Hugenholtz said.
“Then at night, it was dipping down below freezing again, so you’d get that freezing action and that very quickly can start to open up those cracks and they just get bigger and bigger.”
Auto repair shop owner Danny Joyce says they’re seeing a lot of vehicles coming through that have hit a pothole.
“We’re getting at least three or four cars a day with damage to either a tire, a rim or a spring,” said Joyce.
“Some of the potholes are quite deep, and like I say, if they get filled with water and you can’t see it and then you hit it, it’s a problem, it’s an issue. It does a lot of damage and it does it fast.”
Residents in Saint John are encouraged to report any potholes they see to the city, either by calling, emailing or filling out an online form.
“We are looking forward to the end of the winter eventually, we do expect in April our asphalt plants will open up again,” says Hugenholtz. “And at that point we put a full blitz out to patch all the potholes that have happened over the winter season.”
He also encourages residents, in the meantime, to drive carefully.
“We do ask drivers to exercise caution when they’re out there on the roads, so even though they’re patching as many holes as they can, they can spring up overnight.”