KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Officials in Kansas City, Missouri’s Public Works Department told a city council committee Thursday morning that the city is losing the war against potholes.
The city’s seemingly-endless winter has wreaked havoc on roads across the metro, including KCMO, where officials have been scrambling to balance treating roads and filling potholes.
"We're losing the pothole war really, really, really bad," Ralph Davis, deputy director of Public Works, said.
The process of repairing the thousands of potholes across the city could take until June, the city said, as they attempt to not just patch potholes, but also add an overlay of new surface in particularly bad areas.
The city plans to prioritize high-traffic areas such as Ward Parkway.
"We're getting two, three and four times the number of calls this year than we've had in previous years," Davis said of the number of pothole reports.
Davis said they received 2,100 pothole complaints on February 21 and 22 alone.
"What they really want to do is go and cut a square hole and chip out all the raggedy edges and spray a tack nice and neat and put asphalt in to make it real pretty and then put a roller on it. And that's a patch that will last a long time. But with 2,100 in one day, it ain't gonna happen," said Davis.
During the first couple months of winter last year, the city received 451 pothole reports.
A staffing shortage in the Public Works Department has made it more difficult to address the problem, leading to "short term fixes."
Chris Hernandez, spokesman for KCMO, said they do have people applying to the open positions, however it does take some time to get new employees trained.
In the meantime, street crews have been completing temporary pothole fixes. In order to permanently patch the potholes, the weather has to be 40 degrees or higher.
Another problem is deferred maintenance projects. It will take around $46 million to maintain the streets each year.
The city has $14 million worth of contracting bids out to get help.
Superior Bowen Asphalt Co. tested a new product this past week along Ward Parkway, northbound from Gregory.
"We have technology that is, frankly, used in a lot of other places in the country and we want to be able to use it here if it can help," said Trey Bowen, President of Superior Bowen.
The company has the equipment and the manpower the city doesn't. If their product works, they'll enter into a contract with the city.
Bowen says historically pothole patching is made of a diesel fuel base, which is not a good combination with asphalt.
"What we've developed is more of a natural, organic chemistry and it won't eat itself. It's more flexible. It should form to the pothole and over time adapt to the hole instead of being this rigid thing that'll pop out when it's hit by cars," said Bowen.
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