Complaints about potholes in Ottawa this year have already exceeded the number of complaints made in 2016, according to an analysis of the city’s monthly service requests data.
The analysis shows that between January and August of 2017, over 27,000 residents called the city’s 311 line to complain about “road travelled surface,” more than 5,000 the number last year and more than double the number in 2015. According to the city, most of these calls are about potholes and other concerns about the quality of roads.
Potholes are also the most common reason for 311 calls across all 24 of Ottawa’s municipal wards. However, two wards stand out for the high number of complaints. Residents of River Ward and Alta Vista Ward have called 311 about the quality of roads about 20 per cent more than any other this year.
“It doesn’t mean there are more potholes in River Ward than any other ward,” River Ward Councillor Riley Brockington said. “It just means my residents are maybe more active at calling them in.”
In fact, Brockington said he encourages his constituents to call 311 when they come across potholes during their commute. By reporting them to 311, Brockington said the potholes get logged by the city and prioritized when it comes time to fill them in.
Between January and June of 2017, the city filled over 195,000 potholes, according to Luc Gagné, director of roads and services for the City of Ottawa. That’s an increase of more than 20,000 compared to the same time last year.
Brockington blames the number of potholes on the weather. “Last year the winter was brutal,” he said. There were about 80 days last winter when the city experienced a “freeze-thaw,” when the temperature swings from above zero to below zero, according to Brockington.
Although it’s true that the repeated melting and freezing of water over the winter can contribute to potholes by widen existing cracks in the pavement, that’s not the only reason for potholes, according to Carleton Professor of Transportation Engineering Abd El Halim.
El Halim said he thinks cities such as Ottawa have the wrong approach to paving roads in the first place, leading to serious problems down the line. The steel rollers that Ottawa uses to pave roads leave hairline fractures in the pavement, similar to the cracks that appear in pastry dough after being rolled out, according to El Halim.
Once these initial cracks are created, El Halim said it’s easy for water to trickle in, freeze, expand and, after repeated cycles of thawing and freezing, create the potholes that Ottawa residents complain so often about.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “We landed a small machine on Mars a few million kilometres away from Earth, and until now we can’t solve a problem that’s two metres away from our houses.”
However, El Halim also said he has a solution. He calls it AMIR, and it’s an alternative to the asphalt rollers used in most cities. Instead of using a steel roller, El Halim said AMIR uses a rubber belt that prevents cracks during the paving process.
“I’m a taxpayer before I’m a researcher. … I don’t want to pay taxes that go down the drain,” El Halim said. “But I’m also a researcher, so I can find the solution, which I am doing now.”
Although El Halim said he’s encouraged the city to change their paving process, so far AMIR has been limited to test runs. “People sometimes are afraid of the new,” he said.
However, for councillors such as Brockington, the focus remains on resolving the concerns of constituents. He said he’s been lobbying the city to direct more funding to repair potholes in the next budget cycle.
