Toronto’s harsh winter means crews working extended hours to fill potholes

Globalnews.ca
May 2, 2018
Kamil Karamali

To watch the video, click on this link: https://globalnews.ca/news/4182689/toronto-pothole-extended-hours/

 

The worst of the bone-chilling weather may be behind us, but that means city crews now have the ‘unprecedented’ task of working extended hours throughout May to fill thousands of potholes around Toronto.

“We have been trying to stay on top of this throughout, but it has been a very, very bad year and it’s something that has required extraordinary action in the form of all the blitzes we have already undertaken,” Toronto Mayor John Tory said at a news conference on Wednesday.

“But now it’s taken more extraordinary action because even with the blitzes we are not able to keep up.”

Tory said anywhere between 25 to 30 crews will be working on filling potholes Monday to Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., throughout the month of May. That’s in contrast to the roughly 20-plus crews that commonly work on pothole repairs over the weekend to avoid traffic disruption. During weekday work, it represents an extra four hours a day.

Tory added that crews have already filled 133,852 so far in 2018, compared to roughly 96,000 at this time in 2017.

The weather has played a significant role in the number of potholes the city has had to repair so far this year -- and the freeze and thaw cycles have also impacted the ability of crews to repair the damaged roads.

“The very fact that we had, up to and including a week ago, subzero temperatures, and we had of course the ice storm a couple of week ago really complicated life in both causing more potholes and making the weather conditions more difficult to get out and fill them the way we wanted,” Tory said.

He added that Toronto residents have flagged 1,195 potholes that still need to be filled, but said there are many more that are still out there.

He encouraged residents to call 311 or email the city to let them know about any potholes the city may not yet be aware of.