Mild winter leaves gap in pothole work: Fixer
Potholes aren't nearly as bad as the last two winters, while plows and sanders haven’t seen much action.

thestar.com
Jan. 12, 2016
By Jack Lakey

Drivers and taxpayers are reaping dividends from the mild weather this winter, in the form of fewer potholes and less snow to slog through.

Snow clearing costs have been minimal so far, while the absence of freeze-and-thaw conditions and road salt has greatly reduced the number of potholes that usually plague our roads at this time of year.

The good weather has also allowed road construction that would normally shut down in late fall to continue, reducing the amount of work that needs to be carried over into 2016.

“The mild winter so far is certainly good news because we’ve been able to extend construction projects,” said Hector Moreno, one of Toronto’s road operations managers.

“We’ve also been able to continue road sweeping and clean up debris that would plug storm basins, and use staff to fill potholes and do other things,” instead of hand-shovelling snow at intersections and TTC stops, said Moreno.

The city stayed within its 2015 winter maintenance budget of $85 million, he said, partly due to the lack of snow in November and December, while service requests for potholes were significantly less than the previous year.

In the brutal winter of 2014, the city filled about 365,000 potholes at a cost of $5.8 million, an average of $489,000 per month. Service requests for potholes and other road related issues topped out at about 20,000.

The numbers were much better in 2015 - about 254,000 potholes were filled at a cost of $4.7 million, an average monthly expense of $396,000. Service requests totalled 8,700, less than half the 2014 number.

With no hard weather to speak of this winter - until the Tuesday snowfall - and a mild winter forecast for the rest of the season, Moreno said he expects that the pothole crop won’t be too bad.

And with more staff available to patch potholes instead of clearing snow, Moreno said it allows the city to keep up with the ones that develop, instead of falling farther behind, as is the case in a tough winter.