The way money is allocated in most cash-strapped cities, counties and townships across America, it often seems like a matter of splitting hairs. But the Butcher Road Pothole of 2011 in Columbiana County, Ohio really came down to splitting a road. All in the name of fiscal responsibility.<\/p>
A brouhaha erupted in the summer, when a pothole plaguing motorists seemed to be getting bigger while it was officially ignored. Citizens complained to the city of Salem, which owned one side of the road, and Perry Township, which borders the city from the opposite side of the road. Apparently, where the precise dividing line fell – and in whose jurisdiction the pothole was located – was not absolutely clear.<\/p>
<\/p>
As the city of Salem and the township of Perry debated each other publicly in the media, local residents and users of the road were none too pleased the problem wasn’t getting fixed.<\/p>
WFMJ-TV interviewed Joanne Bogdan, in whose neighborhood the pothole sat. “Get yourself together here and do something about it,” she said. “We pay our taxes. They want our taxes paid on time and we should have some kind of service here.”<\/p>
WYTV-33 talked to another neighbor, Thomas Grimm, whose thoughts on the bureaucratic wrangling were, well, grim. “It started last winter,” he told reporters. “It’s been bad ever since. When you pull out, you have to watch because the other cars are coming toward you. It’s a dangerous situation. Someone is going to get hurt.”<\/p>
Salem News reporter Mary Ann Greier dug into the heart of the problem. As it turns out, the city annexed this particular section of the town a few years back. The annexation changed the property line to the middle of the road in question. But a sign indicating the city limit overreaches a bit, to the far side of the road – signs don’t land in the middles of roads, for obvious reasons – which may have contributed to the confusion.<\/p>
City and township stewards of road repair resources each defended their positions in the interest of economy. “I’m not going to spend city taxpayer dollars to fix a township road,” said Salem’s City Service\/Safety Director Steve Andres.<\/p>
A county prosecutor was called in. By mid-September, that prosecutor determined Perry Township was responsible for the area in question.<\/p>
And in this county on the eastern edge of Ohio the pothole was repaired immediately. We assume there was much rejoicing.<\/p>

Salem, Ohio Pothole Once Famous, Now Fixed

In a city like New York there is a subterranean world. Pet alligators once flushed down toilets are rumored to roam the sewers – an apocryphal tale – and the drinking water system is said to leak like a sieve (true, as it turns out).
There is evidence of secret tunnels in Queens connecting what once were two forts (Totten and Schuyler). "Invisible New York – The Hidden Infrastructure of the City" by Stanley Greenberg (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and "Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of Hidden New York," by L.B. Deyo and David Leibowitz (Three Rivers Press, 2003) each treat these realms with respect, awe, fear and no lack of humor. The movie, In Search of the Mole People, documents an underground world of people squatting in the tunnels adjoining the subway system as a follow-up to the book, "The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City" (Jennifer Toth, Chicago Review Press, 1995). Both revisit the theme created by a 1950s B movie, The Mole People (which includes a character played by Hugh Beaumont, who later starred as dad Ward Cleaver in the "Leave it to Beaver" television series).
The books, movies and urban legends all suggest one thing: something unknown and possibly dangerous lurks beneath our feet and car tires.
So it would seem when mysterious holes appear on a street, people would get nervous. That more or less happened in August and September 2011 in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on Flatlands Avenue near East 38th Street (the Marine Park neighborhood). But the question is, were they nervous about the right things?
As first discovered, the local citizenry mistook two pavement defects for potholes. Engaged in keeping the neighborhood functional, several reported the "potholes" to the city's 3-1-1 number. One of those complainers was actually a former city commissioner who oversaw the taxi and limousine department. He ominously described it as "movie-monster-type-big." (A coincidental choice of words? We think not.)
But the city's Department of Transportation responded to complainers by telling them they could not fix the faux potholes because in fact each was a "street defect." Not their department, the department explained, pointing out how a pothole has a "definable bottom." This, the NYCDOT contended, is a "cave-in…[with a] jagged hole and a deep void."
Deep void indeed. Note that the street defects were both large divots, with center holes allowing people to peer into them to see if there were definable bottoms – if they dared to get so close. City inspectors had looked and apparently saw no definable bottom.
So the NYCDOT kicked the problem over to the Department of Environmental Protection, under the assumption the fissures are related to crumbling sewers (what has been found to be the cause of many such street defects in the past). For future reference, New Yorkers should visit the <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/potholephotos.shtml">"What Street Defects Look Like" page</a> on the NYCDOT website, where such features as potholes, cave-ins, hummocks, utility cuts and "ponding conditions" are described. The more people know, the more accurately they can report problems to the city.
In The Mole People, the population of people living underground perceived a source of light – a hole joining them from their subterranean world to the sun-exposed earth's surface – to be a deity they call the "Eye of Ishtar." Has no one in Brooklyn seen this movie??

NYC Mystery: Not a Pothole, a “Street Defect”

On July 16 and 17 (2011), much of the country was riveted on “Carmageddon,” an orchestrated shutdown of ten miles of I-405 (the San Diego Freeway) between I-10 (Santa Monica Freeway) and US-101 (Ventura Freeway). Caltrans, the California state highways department in charge of the highway and repairs, conducted this major project over the two-day weekend to ultimately improve traffic flow with HOV (high occupancy vehicles) lanes, improve bridges, realign off ramps, widen underpasses and add retaining and sound walls. The marathon road-repair weekend was deemed a success – in traffic management and infrastructure improvement – and actually concluded several hours ahead of schedule.<\/p>
But Carmageddon comes on the heels of two separate, massive and successful pothole projects conducted earlier in the year on City of Los Angeles-managed streets. “Operation Pothole,” (OP) conducted on weekends in January 2011 and again in June 2011, cumulatively filled 39,811 potholes. While not garnering nearly as much national attention, OP has made driving more safe and comfortable and less costly for motorists and businesses alike in LA.<\/p>
<\/p>
Pothole.info had a chance to speak with Nazario Sauceda, assistant director in the Bureau of Street Services, Department of Public Works for the City of Los Angeles. He shares with us what they did, the special tools they worked with to repair pavement, the goals of the city relative to pothole-free pavement – and why potholes seem to be a source of fascination with Angelenos.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> How bad is the pothole situation in Los Angeles?<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> We have 300,000 potholes we would like to fix this year on the 28,000 lane miles of Los Angeles roads and streets. Potholes have a high degree of visibility, but in fact we approach pavement in three ways: employment of a pavement management system, maintenance and rehabilitation.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> Tell us what those three pavement approaches involve.<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> Our pavement management system is how we measure and prioritize our maintenance program. At its core is our “micropaver,” a van that captures information on street conditions, block by block, with the use of high-definition cameras and lasers that measure smoothness, all of which is computerized and fed to technicians for analysis. Streets are then categorized by PCI – our pavement condition index – and plotted on a map. As a manager, I can then ask, “What are the consequences of neglect of this street?”<\/p>
With this information, we can then determine where to do parts two and three, maintenance – which involves pothole repair, but also the use of slurry and crack sealers – or resurfacing and reconstruction where the roads are in worse shape. Our goal is to prevent reconstruction, as that costs five to seven times more money than maintenance.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> If you assign this PCI number to your streets, where do your scores fall?<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> On a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being perfect, the micropaver has found our streets to be an average of 62. We consider this to be a C-minus score.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> But you seem to be on track to raise that score.<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> Improving on our PCI is a major goal of Mayor [Antonio] Villaraigosa. He wants to stop pavement deterioration with a steady attack on our PCI because this is a mayor who understands preservation versus resurfacing and reconstruction. He saw how our first Operation Pothole (in January) was so successful that he said to repeat it.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> Why is the mayor so concerned about potholes?<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> The Mayor’s priority is economic development. Many business developers are now looking at downtown LA, where the streets have to be good to attract new business. He knows that streets also represent an important part of the quality of life.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> The micropaver cannot measure all your streets at one time, and we all know that potholes can pop up in a day. How do you know where the current potholes are?<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> We depend on citizens calling 3-1-1 with their pothole reports. And prior to the first Operation Pothole, we asked 85 certified community groups to get involved and report the conditions of streets in their neighborhoods, which they did.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> How much do your pothole needs exceed the budget for preservation?<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> We would need $2.5 billion to restore all our streets to very good condition. We are pretty sure we can reach there in ten years if we use intelligent tools. That includes using recycled asphalt, cold-in-place recycling, slurry sealing – all the maintenance tools.<\/p>
Pothole.info:<\/strong> And pothole filling.<\/em><\/p>
Sauceda:<\/strong> Yes, definitely pothole filling. But it’s a funny thing about potholes. They get all the attention. We have the micropaver, we were the first city in the nation to recycle pavement cold-in-place, and those things don’t get the media coverage that we get with potholes. And note, representatives from Japan, from Russia and Europe and South America come here to see our model – because it works.<\/p>

Los Angeles' Operation Pothole – A Business Development Strategy

They’re everywhere and they never seem to completely go away. They make us mad, damage our cars and often are cause for rerouting. “They” are potholes.<\/p>
So it’s time that there be a full accounting of potholes everywhere. If you live in a northern climate, you know that winter and spring bring a whole new crop. If you live in a warmer, southern climate, there are plenty of potholes there all year round. Rather than just ride over and past them, <a href="http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Potholeinfo\/358441885745">take a photo and post it here on the Pothole.info Facebook page<\/a> – and be sure to let us know where it is and how it affects you.<\/p>
<\/p>
<a href="http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Potholeinfo\/358441885745" class="noGif"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-523" title="show-us-your-potholes" src="/uploads/show-us-your-potholes-21a44768.jpg" alt="Show us your potholes on the Pothole.info Facebook page" width="568" height="477" style="border:1px solid gray;" \/><\/a><\/p>

Show us your potholes on the Pothole.info Facebook page

With any business start-up, there is the lingering question of “if you build it, will they come?” And even if they do, will it mean anything?<\/p>
But that is not the worry with developers, investors or users of SeeClickFix, the phone app enabling citizen engagement in pothole abatement. Citizens are coming, local governments are responding – and the potholes are getting fixed.<\/p>
The surprise is that all these volunteer pothole reporters are also helping municipalities save money. Public employees who used to be tasked with finding the potholes and receiving phone-in pothole complaints can now shift to other functions. That might include more crews who actually repair the streets – to the cheers of motorists, cyclists and elected officials.<\/p>
<\/p>
<a href="http:\/\/www.pothole.info\/potholes-reported\/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-502" title="SeeClickFix" src="/uploads/screen-shot-2011-03-23-at-4-12-15-pm-e1300911749125-445a8af2.png" alt="SeeClickFix" width="568" height="328" \/><\/a><\/p>
“For local governments, it does require some upfront investment,” founder Ben Berkowitz told Pothole.info. “But there are savings down the line. One city tells us they spent between $9 and $15 per phone call [when citizens report potholes the old fashioned way, by phone]. But when SeeClickFix generates repair requests through the Web, that cost is eliminated.” He adds that reporting redundancies – two or more people phoning in the same pothole but with vague instructions that send repair crews out multiple times – are largely eliminated with the photos and GPS locator functions of the SeeClickFix app.<\/p>
Already, a total of 90,000 civic problems – potholes, as well as all other non-emergency issues such as broken streetlamps, non-operating playground equipment and graffiti – have filtered through the SeeClickFix system to appropriate government agencies. Tracking indicates that about 50 percent of them have been resolved thus far.<\/p>
Why SeeClickFix is working – and potholes are disappearing<\/strong><\/p>
Part of why SeeClickFix has taken hold with citizen users is due to the exploding interest in smartphone apps. Another part of SeeClickFix’s early adoption and growth is due to its intuitive simplicity: You see a pothole, take a picture of it and upload it to SeeClickFix, where the GPS coordinates and photo are sent to the municipal entity that maintains that particular highway, road or street. Tracking maps on the app Website (<a href="http:\/\/www.seeclickfix.com\/">SeeClickFix.com<\/a>), on more than 700 local news sites and on many government sites provide transparency and accountability, a way for these municipalities to report progress and citizens to see how effective their efforts are.<\/p>
But part of why it’s working is how phone app users – who by and large skew younger, including the Millennial generation, ages 21-33 – are inclined to get involved in community work of a sort. With a study conducted by Hart Research Associates on behalf of the Center for American Progress and its “Doing What Works” project, analysts Guy Molyneux, Ruy Teixeira and John Whaley issued a report (“The Generation Gap on Government, Why and How the Millennial Generation is the Most Pro-Government Generation and What This Means for Our Future”) in 2010. The study identified where and how younger people – also the largest users of social networking tools – are predisposed to believing that government should solve problems.<\/p>
This generation, says the report, grew up with Web-based tools for organizing, sharing and meeting. It’s no stretch for them to see an app as a tool for change – particularly if the change is as visible as a pothole repair. According to a high-ranking official in the British government under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, quoted in the report, “What really grabs headlines is the way a government handles (or mishandles) a crisis. But what changes people’s lives is how a government handles routine functions; everything from pothole repair to ensuring all government Web sites are active and populated with accurate content<\/strong>.”<\/p>
Millennials also believe that large goals can be achieved through the efforts of individuals working in large groups. Some cite “swarm theory,” where large groups comprised of simple, singular “intelligences” can solve complex problems very efficiently, as a correlating concept. It is observed in the animal kingdom (e.g., ants and bees), and operates in a similar fashion with social networking.<\/p>
In other words, if hundreds of people in a medium-size city take camera phone pictures of potholes and then forward them on to the city’s streets maintenance department, more of the most important potholes will be filled and fixed faster. Net result: a whole city will become more drivable.<\/p>
It also doesn’t hurt that SeeClickFix is ramping up its operation with some key funding from venture capitalists and other investors. As of February 2011, the enterprise had secured $1.5 million financing that will enable a robust 2.0 version and an increase in staff to support it.<\/p>
SeeClickFix revenues are generated by municipal software licenses and advertising. The app is chronicled in a chapter of the book Next Generation Democracy: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change<\/em> (Jared Duval, Bloomsbury USA, 2010), a review of recent events and developments in American culture. It suggests that citizen participation can sometimes solve the problems where large institutions, including government, fail.<\/p>
Passive and active municipal use of SeeClickFix<\/strong><\/p>
You can’t help but wonder if SeeClickFix trespasses on turf in departments of transportation. How audacious is it that an app developer finds a way to throw a lot of work, in the form of complaints, on hard-working, cash-strapped street maintenance departments?<\/p>
“Anyone in government who neglects feedback will ultimately see a negative effect,” says Berkowitz. “But if they hear about how several municipalities are saving money, it’s good incentive.” Berkowitz explains that initial resistance over transparency concerns are giving way to excitement over the fact that citizens are pitching in, doing some of the harder work of problem detection.<\/p>
He offers as an example New Haven, Connecticut, where the company is based. “They’ve saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in staffing,” he notes, along with emphasizing that fixed potholes make for a happier electorate.<\/p>
Berkowitz also notes that there are three levels at which cities, counties and states can participate in SeeClickFix:<\/p>
<div class="indent">
SeeClickFix Pro<\/strong>: Basically, all municipalities will receive emails whenever a pothole is reported, regardless of whether they establish a formal relationship with the app. But by signing up for the Pro service, a city is able to manage reported issues with SCF-supplied software. The app provider has assembled a database of 14,000 individual email addresses for various functions that the app covers (streets, parks, non-violent crime, etc.). Cost to the municipality is $40 per month.<\/p>
SeeClickFix Plus<\/strong> – Subscriber governments get additional SeeClickFix services that include custom mobile app interfaces, automated personal emails and a contest function that engages citizens to a greater degree. Cost is $100 per month per 100,000 population.<\/p>
SeeClickFix Connect<\/strong> – This is the premium service that adds a full CRM (customer relations management) function to the process, minimizing staff involvement while increasing the degree of satisfaction by citizen app users with expedited repair communications functions. Costs are worked out on an individual basis.<\/p>
<\/div>
It doesn’t stop with potholes<\/strong><\/p>
Potholes are generally among the most extensive, ubiquitous, visible and costly problems facing governments and their citizens. Due to aging infrastructure and a tendency to reduce maintenance operations when city, county and state coffers are running empty, roads that were built 40 and 50 and 60 years ago are deteriorating at a rapid pace. A crack in pavement today left unsealed allows water under the top layer, which undermines the sublayers that in turn lead to potholes.<\/p>
Which is why potholes are a central part of what SeeClickFix fixes. “Potholes are the gateway drug to civic engagement,” says Berkowitz, who was named “Greatest Person of the Day” by the Huffington Post on December 2, 2010. He explains that when people see what they can do to fix pavement, they start paying attention to other activities and other problems in their community. They seek out graffiti, look for broken streetlights and traffic hazards. They also use a community organizing tool on the SCF site which is an open platform for addressing community needs. This tool enables like-minded people to find each other and come up with ways to create change.<\/p>
“People are using this,” says Berkowitz. “They put it to work to design bike lanes, advocate for planting trees, mark dangerous intersections, and lobby for grocery stores where there are none.”<\/p>
A similar app with an identical purpose was built in Portland, Oregon. There, with a tech-ready population and a city ready to embrace the influx of pothole complaints, the crews taking care of broken pavement have been doubled. Imagine halving the number of potholes found throughout the country in just a few years.<\/p>
They built it, the people came – and local governments are responding. A new generation is giving the rest of us reason to hope.<\/p>

SeeClickFix: More Potholes Fixed, Money Saved

It was only a matter of time: A pothole in Brockton, Massachusetts has its own Facebook page.<\/p>
What’s more, it has fans: More than 500 as of March 15 (we thought it appropriate to visit it on the Ides of March). Under “Basic Information,” the pothole with the Facebook identity of “Alger Street” describes itself in frank terms:<\/p>
I am one of the meanest, ugliest roads you&#8217;ve ever seen. I pop tires, dent rims, break shocks, you name it I do it. I have been this way for about 10 years now. Even though people complain about me constantly, NO ONE CAN CHANGE ME. I&#8217;M A MONSTER!!!<\/em><\/p>
The page identifies as female but provides no relationship information. 
 
The pothole Facebook page is actually the work of Christine Brennan. “Any part of the Brockton stretch of this road is in this condition,” she told <a href="http:\/\/www.bing.com\/videos\/watch\/video\/pothole-road-gets-its-own-facebook-page\/1d0d5wvrf?q=Pothole&amp;rel=msn&amp;from=en-us_msnhp&amp;form=MSNRLL&amp;gt1=42010&amp;playermode=overlay&amp;header=true&amp;ad=sponsor%7Ctrue&amp;adFull=ENUS_DivPlayerTest2%7Cweb&amp;adPartial=ENUS_DivPlayerTest2%7Cpartial&amp;timePlaying=90&amp;gallery.categoryRequests=videobytag.aspx%3fmk%3dus%26vs%3d0%26ns%3dgallery%26tag%3dv5%20hero%20playlist%26sf%3dVideoId%26ipt%3d1">TheBostonChannel.com<\/a>. “It’s a terrible, miserable street to have to drive. The inside of my car shakes, rattles.” Brennan and others interviewed for the webcast cite significant and expensive damage their vehicles have endured from the road in recent times. The road is not considered a priority by the city, according to the reporter. But for Brennan and others in her neighborhood, it is the only option for traveling to and from their homes.<\/p>
According to a 2009 analysis of Federal Highway Administrative data by TRIP, a highway research organization, about 41 percent of the roads in Massachusetts are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition. TRIP also finds that Massachusetts drivers spend an extra $301 per year in additional vehicle operating costs due to rough roads, with about the same costs borne by motorists in Connecticut and Vermont. In Rhode Island they pay more ($473\/year), but less in New Hampshire and Maine (both $250). New York residents shell out $405\/year thanks to potholes and other pavement degradation.<\/p>
Other media are reporting on the Facebook strategy Brennan decided to follow. She told <a href="http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local\/massachusetts\/articles\/2011\/03\/11\/pothole_rutted_brockton_street_gets_attention_on_facebook\/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5">Boston.com<\/a>, “They took over Egypt with a Facebook page. We figured we could get Alger Street fixed.” The local <a href="http:\/\/www.enterprisenews.com\/business\/x617854294\/Pothole-riddled-street-in-Brockton-now-on-Facebook#axzz1Gg95hXUi">Brockton Enterprise News reports<\/a> that Alger Street has poor drainage, a design flaw that invites pavement deterioration. Temporary patching is thought to be largely ineffective. The city told TheBostonChannel.com that complete reconstruction costs are hard to justify.<\/p>
Alger Street isn’t the only pothole on Facebook. A Geico commercial pothole has 13,885 fans, while a somewhat redundant page titled “Oh no!! Your tire’s all flat and junk!” POTHOLE has another 10,560 fans. “Fill That Pothole!” is a Glasgow, Scotland page with 132 fans who post photos of where their cars and bikes have been damaged by potholes. In turn, the page administrator reports these potholes to the Glasgow City Council.<\/p>

Massachusetts Pothole Gets a Facebook Page

As you may already know, our Senior Reporter, Russ Klettke, appeared on the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio. The show aired live on Monday, March 7th, at 1 PM EST. 
If you missed the show, <a href="http://www.yourpublicmedia.org/content/wnpr/colin-mcenroe-show-potholes-are-unbearable">listen here</a>.

Colin McEnroe Show: Potholes Are Unbearable

Our Senior Reporter, Russ Klettke, will be appearing on the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio. The show will air live on Monday, March 7th, at 1 PM EST. The topic will of course be potholes, and several other relevant guests will join the discussion. <\/p>
CPTV \/ WNPR Web Site: 
<a href="http:\/\/www.cpbn.org\/">http:\/\/www.cpbn.org\/<\/a><\/p>
Listen Live: 
<a href="http:\/\/www.cpbn.org\/listen-live">http:\/\/www.cpbn.org\/listen-live<\/a><\/p>

Pothole.info to appear on WNPR, Hartford, CT

In a city known more for grunge bands, coffee, rain and Nordstrom’s, there emerges a new phenomenon that has the citizenry buzzing.<\/p>
Yup, it’s potholes. All that rain – and this winter, a good dose of snow as well – has to go somewhere. Where there are cracks in the pavement, that includes in and under the asphalt, leading to a proliferation of potholes that required filling 91 percent more chuckholes in January 2011 than January of last year. Unbowed, the city launched a new pothole-repair tracking website to keep motorists informed on the progress.<\/p>
The problems with pothole-riddled pavement began earlier in December, when MyNorthwest.com reported the city was doubling the number of pothole repair crews, from two to four. The website reported on December 23 that city spokesperson Rick Sheridan place the blame on two factors: excess rain and aging infrastructure.<\/p>
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Just two weeks later, the press and commentariat were abuzz with complaints on where the potholes were – and who was to blame. Crosscut.com reported, “One thing is clear: Seattle&#8217;s potholes are blooming.” The hyperlocal blog reported that the city’s Department of Transportation, SDOT, carries the Seattle Pothole Information center at <a href="http:\/\/www.seattle.gov\/transportation\/potholes\/">http:\/\/www.seattle.gov\/transportation\/potholes\/<\/a>, including a color-coded map and a weekly report on progress, broken down into five categories:<\/p>
<ul>
<li>Outstanding pothole requests<\/li>
<li>Pothole requests initiated<\/li>
<li>Pothole requests closed (those fixed, and those found to be duplicates)<\/li>
<li>Potholes repaired<\/li>
<\/ul>
The accompanying map breaks down specific potholes into four different categories: New requests, work in progress, potholes filled in the preceding 90 days and a 12-month history of pothole repairs.<\/p>
Given how many throw-and-go pothole repairs begin disintegrating a few weeks after being fixed, one imagines a lot of overlap between the recently fixed and the new request sites.<\/p>
Crosscut.com continues its report, noting that “[Mayor Mike] McGinn stated that there are nearly something like three-times more potholes this winter than last, mostly because of rain and snow and ice, according to Seattle Department of Transportation supervisors. The freeze-thaw cycle can play havoc with the streets, and Seattle is not the only Washington city seeing a bumper crop of potholes. Spokane is dealing with an unprecedented proliferation as well.”<\/p>
Despite that last sentence, noting that potholes are subject to regional weather and other influences, the blog notes that all Seattle mayors, current and former, are implicated in pothole-ribbed city streets.<\/p>
“Potholes are how Seattleites judge effectiveness,” said Knute Berger, Crosscut reporter. “Can the mayor fix &#8217;em? [Former mayor] Greg Nickel&#8217;s launched the war with his “Pothole Rangers” and personally donned a helmet and went on patrol. [Another former mayor] Paul Schell reputedly made political points by becoming a pothole-repair vigilante. A mayor who can’t smooth the streets is in trouble. And it’s not just about cars: potholes can injure pedestrians and cyclists too.”<\/p>
Which are big concepts, as SDOT reports that 36 percent of the city’s half-million residents engage in recreational bicycling, and 8,000 people commute to their jobs there during the summer. Seattle has an equally pedestrian-friendly culture and infrastructure.<\/p>
The Seattle Times, a daily newspaper, opened a January 5 article with the line, “WELCOME to Seattle, City of Potholes.” It too took to task mayors, current and former, for their attempts to hold back the growing pothole problem.<\/p>
“[Former mayor Mike] McGinn launched a supposedly more thorough plan for dealing with potholes,” said Steve Ringman, reporting for the Times. “The new mayor all but scoffed at former Mayor Greg Nickels&#8217; rapid, 48-hour response, saying quick fixes were fast but not durable enough. Crews intend to take more time to remove jagged edges and create a smoother surface to last 12 months, compared with Nickels&#8217; three-month patches.”<\/p>
Blogger “Math Mom” weighed in her response to the Times’ article, noting how she hears repairs apparently are or should be done. “Apparently, Shoreline [a suburb immediate adjacent to Seattle] fixes cracks in the road before the ice and thaws happen,” she notes. “Gosh–no place for the ice to form in the roads leads to fewer potholes? Who could ever have predicted that not waiting for potholes to form in the first place before maintaining the streets might be a good idea? Amazing!”<\/p>
OK, perhaps Math Mom has the right idea. But in the mayor’s defense, there’s a lot more to running a city – police and fire departments, departments of revenue, education, cultural affairs, commerce, etc. – than just repairing potholes.<\/p>
Almanac.com (the Old Farmer’s Almanac, online) is predicting that the coldest and snowiest weather for the Pacific Northwest will ease in March, and that April and May will be “cooler and drier than normal.” Count the dryness as a plus – most pothole filling material (with some exceptions) cannot be used in standing puddles.<\/p>
Because where it comes to judging elected officials, mayors in particular, it’s the potholes people notice the most. As they accumulate and grow with aging roadway systems most cities built in the 1950s and 1960s, potholes increasingly have become the measure of mayoral effectiveness. We sympathize with all city leaders who grapple with this challenge – and wish them well in the spring and summer of 2011, when the repair work will happen in earnest.<\/p>

Seattle Grapples with Pothole Paloozza 2011

The election of Rahm Emanuel to the mayor's office in Chicago without a runoff – he garnered 55 percent of the vote in the February election, enough to save voters and the city the hassle and expense of a runoff election – is regarded as a minor miracle in this most political of cities. And that's a good thing, because the cash-strapped metropolis, like so many others, can use the money for other things. Not the least of which is repairs to the Windy City's infrastructure – including the potholes.
But my own Chicago miracle came a few weeks earlier, and it had everything to do a pothole. Specifically, a big, gaping, Volkswagen-jarring pothole on the Foster Street rise on Lake Shore Drive. I hit it twice, two days in a row, as I headed toward downtown in the southbound side of the famous parkway. So after the second hit, I did what I heard we could do: I called the non-emergency 3-1-1 city services line.

I half expected I would end up blogging about the series of fruitless phone calls I would make about that darn pothole. Chicago is a city of aldermanic wards, where seeking help with a municipal problem is thought to require knowing your alderman or alderwoman. But I didn't go that route. I just went through the standard, know-nobody system. Surely, I thought, the 3-1-1 program is just public relations, a bureaucratic black hole that goes deeper than any pothole anywhere on The Drive, the Kennedy, the Eisenhower, the Stevenson or any of the presidents' streets (Washington, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, etc.).
Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The City of Chicago fixed this pothole in less than 24 hours. The night after I phoned it in, I drove slow enough over that rise and in the lane to the immediate right side of the pothole. In place of a jagged crevice in the road, that chuckhole (what potholes are sometimes called), had a smooth, blacker-than-the-rest-of-the-road face. Chicago Streets & Sanitation workers really outdid themselves on this. It was a pothole no more.
What it takes to get a pothole fixed in Chicago
Perhaps it was due to the fact that Lake Shore Drive is a major thoroughfare. The parkway's Main Branch Chicago Bridge handles 112,000 cars every day – commercial vehicles prohibited, it should be noted – and this particular section connects the near-North Shore suburbs of the city (Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka and others) to downtown. Several miles of this part of Lake Shore Drive was a virtual battlefield of potholes in the winter of 2008-2009, after which a major pavement preservation program restored it to cruising beauty the following summer (summoning the old pothole-related joke about there only being two seasons in Chicago: winter and construction).
In fact, there are thousands of potholes in the city, like any other city, that need filling. At mid-February, just two weeks after the Groundhog's Day Blizzard of 2011, various media outlets reported on the condition of Chicago-area roads:
<ul>
<li>Although winter's worst might be behind us, stretches of roadway are still causing problems for drivers as they swerve around the potholes popping up across the city and suburbs. And in many cases, melting ice and snow are the culprit. "We welcome the spring," Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Bobby Ware said Tuesday. "But we also welcome our pothole temperatures." (Chicago Tribune, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Drive with care. Pothole season is here. Due to the melting snow during the day and freezing temperatures at night, potholes are starting to pop up on the Chicago area's streets. The City of Chicago received 400 reports on Monday of potholes. "The good news is it's not as bad as a couple of winters ago," said Brian Steele, of the city's Department of Transportation. "Since December 1st, we're only at about 84,000 potholes." (WGN-TV, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The warm-up around Chicagoland is definitely welcome, but one thing that comes with it isn't: potholes. City officials expect the number of pothole reports to spike this week. They said at a press conference Tuesday morning that there were 400 calls to 311 Monday and warned the worst is still ahead. The warm-up will provide the thaw part of the pothole cycle, and we've been in the deep freeze a long time now. The expanding and contracting asphalt, along with the rumble of traffic will stress many areas on Chicago's streets, will cause the cracks Chicagoans despise. (Fox News Chicago Reporter Joanie Lum, February 15, 2011)</li>
</ul>
Almost every news report urges Chicago residents to report their pothole-peeves to the city through the <a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/provdrs/street/svcs/report_a_pot_holeinstreet.html">3-1-1 system</a>. When contacting them, be sure to provide as much detail on the location of the pothole (address or section of road, which lanes, and approximate size of the pothole or potholes).
The phone-in system is pretty easy – one call does it all if you can adequately describe the location of the pothole and its approximate size. The online system is relatively easy too, asking for that much information as well as who you are, where you live and how you can be contacted. Once you file the online report, you receive a confirmation e-mail that includes a tracking number and a link to a status query page. To follow up on progress, you can phone back to the 3-1-1 system with the tracking number to find out the status of the order.
All great cities are about great pavement
That early February snowstorm might have spelled political disaster under different circumstances. Former Mayor Jane Byrne won her seat in 1979 after the incumbent, Michael Bilandic, was widely blamed for botching the cleanup after another early-February snowstorm that dumped 35 inches on the streets of Chicago that year, Lake Shore Drive included. Byrne was saddled with pothole repairs in the aftermath – literally and metaphorically speaking – which stretched into the full four years of her term before she was bounced from office by Harold Washington in 1983. But in 2011, long-time Mayor Richard M. Daley was retiring and no candidate was so strongly attached to him that the snow cleanup – which went relatively well, except for an overnight 700-car logjam on the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive – influenced the election.
And so go the political fortunes of Chicago's mayors. The Chicago Tribune opined in January upon what is to come for the new mayor when he or she took office later in the spring. Rethinking the city's aldermanic-ward system – which in the case of my Lake Shore Drive pothole repair proved unimportant – is what the paper believes can help the city meet future infrastructure challenges.
Many aldermanic candidates seem determined to preserve Chicago's 50 fiefdoms as service delivery zones, regardless of cost. They're still wedded to the city's inefficient ward system for snow removal or garbage pickup, for example, despite the savings that would be realized by using a grid plan that ignores ward boundaries. They know residents are far more focused on potholes than pensions, and we get that, too. But something has to give — and that can't only mean the taxpayers.
I've seen a miracle with a pothole on Lake Shore Drive, so I know it is possible. Now let's see if the miracles can multiply themselves by a factor of about 300,000, the estimated number that need to be repaired in Chicago sometime in 2011.

Can One Chicago Pothole Miracle Be Repeated?

Chicago's most trusted meteorologist, Tom Skilling, dares to guide the 8 million people in the greater Chicago metro area through some of the country's most harsh and unpredictable weather. From his perch as chief weathercaster on WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune, he is the point of first consult every morning for those who plan to venture outside – spring, summer and fall, but most especially, in winter. The frigid season of 2010-2011 is expected to be no different.
And while the nature of what he does is based on winds and moisture and pressure systems miles above the earth's surface, his focus of course is on how it affect people on the ground. That includes the ground itself – and road pavement – as in how potholes form and affect traffic.

In a particularly chilly stretch of several weeks in January 2009, it was Skilling who reported that longtime mayor Richard Daley was admitting the degree of pothole damage to the city's streets had become unmanageable.
"City Hall's 21 pothole repair crews have been dispatched across the city, filling an average of 3,700 potholes a day over the first eight days of the year," he wrote. "But Daley said hundreds of new reports come in each day and thousands of potholes remain unplugged. 'When snow and ice are packed in the street, it's nearly impossible for crew to make any pothole repairs,' the mayor said. 'It is difficult to work with cold patch material in sub-zero temperatures. It pops up … It's frozen when you put it down.'"
The mayor, and Skilling's reporting, touched on a common problem with mid-winter pothole repairs. But neither made the distinction between lower-quality asphalt material and premium cold asphalt. Just north of the city, in Evanston Township, the streets department was working with a different kind of high-performance cold asphalt (EZ Street brand). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/0/3igqoRWCUrw">This clip</a> shows both when the repairs were made during that same cold stretch in January 2009, as well as 10 months later, after the patch had been through spring, summer and fall.
Unlike Mayor Daley's lament about pothole patches that pop up, it bears noting that Evanston streets foreman Don Cornelius said, "It held up real well, it didn't push out in the summertime."
Chicago is predicted to get a colder than normal winter, with very cold periods in December, late January and mid-February 2011. Precipitation (snowfall) will also be near or slightly above normal, with a snowstorm predicted for the latter part of January. In the 120-year history of weather record keeping, Chicago has had 19 days of snowfall totaling more than 10 inches, including an 18.6 inch snowfall on January 2, 1999, which was part of a three-day storm bringing in 21.6 inches overall. In terms of annual snowfall accumulation, the 2009-2010 winter had a relatively large total of 54.3 inches. The winter of 2008-2009 was close behind with 52.7 inches, but both were eclipsed by the 60.3 inches that fell in 2007-2008. Compare those to a string of mild winters in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, which included the 1988-1989 winter's mere 24.5 inches of accumulation.
Potholes meet their match
To hardy Midwesterners, the past isn't prologue. Every winter is different. But inevitably, the true cost after the sidewalks and driveways are shoveled and the roads are plowed, comes in damages to cars as a result of potholes.
It's an old story with a thousand chapters. The trail leading to auto repair shops (pothole hits can blow out tires, damage wheel rims, break axles and can cause a car to crack its catalytic converter) can start below the earth, as it did in north suburban Lake County in January 2010. A water main break under Route 43, a state road, caused existing pavement to heave up. This would surely be a traffic-stopper if left untended. So as detailed in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/3/sCZjhwi5mkk">this clip</a>, crews dug down more than 12 inches to prep for a permanent fix using <a href="http://www.ezstreetasphalt.com/products/">EZ Street premium cold asphalt</a>, done in four "lifts" (layers, separately laid and compacted).
That was on a balmy 30-degree winter day. Just a week later in another Chicago suburb, Westmont, the temperatures were 5 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) – the kind of temperature dip that keeps weathercaster Tom Skilling busy, and which inevitably leads to freeze-thaw cycles and road damage that results in potholes. It was just another day when a utility cut needed to be repaired, so crews in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ezstreetasphalt#p/c/7C945986DDB93C91/2/j4yStw3whUA">this video</a> demonstrated how the cold mix product was still pliable in arctic conditions.
The winter of 2009-2010 in the Chicago area was relatively mild, pothole-wise. The Chicago Tribune reported in April, the moment between potholes and road construction and repair season, that the 225,000 potholes patched that year was a "substantial drop from previous winters." The preceding winter (2008-2009) saw more than 350,000 potholes repaired, while 450,000 potholes were patched in the winter before that (2007-2008), according to the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT).
Why the diminishing numbers? CDOT says it was due to combination of factors, primarily fewer freeze-thaw cycles (i.e., more consistent stretches of freezing temperatures) and that 31 miles of city arterial streets had been resurfaced from the 2009 federal economic stimulus package.
"Last winter, we were filling tens of thousands of potholes on the pothole-plagued streets, and we were out to those locations [where streets have since been resurfaced] several times,' said CDOT's Brian Steele to the Chicago Tribune. "This time, we've not been out there once." Steele says their crews work seven days a week during the height of the season, even though complaints were down last winter. But he knows the law of atrophy applies to pavement as much as pyramids and people. There will be more potholes developing in Chicago – and the department wants to be informed.
"Please report a pothole when you see it," Steele says. "There are more than 3,800 miles of streets in Chicago, and potholes can occur on any of the streets. And we depend on the eyes and ears of the citizens to help us find the locations."
Chicago is a little behind the curve on pothole reporting. The city's 3-1-1 non-emergency hotline is the primary place to call in a pothole complaint. But that requires the reporting citizen to remember to make the call, accurately describe a location, and for the human being at the 311 center to gather that information and send it to appropriate CDOT officials for attention. Multiply that times tens of thousands, and it's understandable if there are some mistakes made in reporting. In other cities – Boston, Portland (Oregon), Charlotte (North Carolina) and Los Angeles, to name a few – citizen smartphone apps are now streamlining that process considerably. The individual needs only to point, shoot and send, providing a visual as well as GPS pinpoint location – eliminating the opportunity for human error in the process.
Who pays when potholes inflict damage?
For motorists whose cars are damaged by a pothole, the city will compensate, on valid claims, for half of the repair cost, up to $2000. City Council member Donal Quinlan told the Chicago Tribune, "The logic is the driver may have had some chance to avoid the damage." Claim forms can be obtained through the <a href="http://www.chicityclerk.com/claims.php">city clerk's office</a>. 
But some claims fall into no-man's-land sometimes. When there is a dispute on a claim, it might be about which government body is responsible – the city, county or state. Driver Sharon Brennan found out about that the hard way in the nearby suburb of Winnetka. She had sustained a blown tire, which ended up costing $147.66 to repair. The village of Winnetka refused to cover any costs because the road on which she was driving (Green Bay Road) is under the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois. But efforts to collect the damages from the state were unsuccessful as well. "Green Bay Road is under the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois, but all surface maintenance is the responsibility of the village, and any associated liability is the responsibility of the village," said Illinois Department of Transportation spokesperson Josh Kauffman in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
When Brennan went back to the village to refile her claim with that information, the village refused her request for $147.66, saying there had been no report of the pothole to them prior to her mishap. Winnetka, population 12,419, has a median household income of $277,371 and a median home value of $1.5 million.
The nearby city of Rockford, Illinois has a population of 150,000 people and surprisingly far fewer claims of pothole damage on its streets. In 2009, the municipality only paid out on 15 pothole-damage claims for a total of $5,792.36.
Why so few claims and such a small payout? Most residents were, until recently, unaware they could collect anything at all. But the standard for a successful claim is high, as it is in many cities (including Chicago). The pothole that caused your damage necessarily needs to have been reported prior to your accident and gone unrepaired by city work crews.
But the city's legal director, Patrick Hayes, also says that minimal road maintenance prior to 2007 simply has led to more potholes than in previous years. But a new infrastructure sales tax in the past two years has raised more funds to catch up a bit on repairs. But make no mistake – Rockford has its share of potholes. And the bureaucratic costs are not limited to those payouts. From the city's risk management budget, an estimated $216,000 was paid out in 2009 to cover insurance, legal claims and judgments.
Since more people became aware they can make claims in Rockford, "it's been a tremendous work spike for our Public Works Department and Legal Department to deal with all of the claims," says Hayes.
Cities like Rockford, Chicago, Winnetka, Evanston and Westmont (as well as Oak Brook, Joliet, Springfield, Kankakee, Champaign-Urbana, Normal, Bloomington, Decatur and Naperville) should all benefit from a $100 million fund announced by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn in September. The funds are dedicated to helping cities and towns repave roads or otherwise repair potholes, as well as maintain bridges, install traffic signals, construct storm sewers and sidewalks and build bicycle paths.
The state has already invested $8 billion in federal and state dollars since 2009 in roads and bridges. It has been part of why pothole incidence is down. With an investment in pavement preservation, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – and a few tons less of car repairs and damage claims.

Pothole repairs confound Illinois cities, counties

The most modern of innovations, smartphone apps, are rapidly becoming a means to fix one of humankind's oldest problems: potholes.
And why not? Regardless of whether you were a fan of Isaac Asimov or the television show "Bewitched," the futuristic/magical ability to point at a problem and fix it instantly (well, almost) is instinctively appealing. To do that, there are now several apps that combine the basic smart phone tools – cameras, the global positioning system (GPS) and a short-cut email function – which enable a single snap-send way to report a pothole (or graffiti or broken streetlights or other municipal problems).

The fact that several apps have been developed – some that are city-sponsored, others operating nationally by third parties who then patch the report through to local street and highway maintenance departments – suggests this is an idea and technology whose time has come.
This "civic app" is so new (most were introduced in the winter of 2009 –2010) that there is not a lot of data to show how effective it is. But we can learn a lot from what Portland, Oregon has done with its mobile app. There, citizens are connected directly to city services that repair streetlights, potholes, sewer catch basins, graffiti and park equipment. When the app was launched in February 2010, citizens in the tech-savvy city were quick to embrace it.
But Portland's maintenance crews were initially overwhelmed with reports on potholes that needed fixing. Your intrepid Pothole.info reporter contacted Rick Nixon, Project Manager for Technological Initiatives at the City of Portland to see what has happened since, particularly as they gear up for the 2010 – 2011 pothole season.
Pothole.info: We read about your successful launch in early 2010, followed by how street maintenance crews had a hard time keeping up with incoming pothole reports. Have you been able to change that?
Nixon: The maintenance department has managed to increase the response times overall since the initial surge of users. While we know that the app means we'll get more reports, it also creates efficiencies. For example, we can distinguish between city and county roads before going out to a site. So the potholes are filled by the appropriate agencies without wasted trips.
Pothole.info: Why do you suppose it was so successful so quickly?
Nixon: The great thing about the pothole mapping app is that it removes complication for the user. Now instead of making a phone call or visiting a website, a citizen using the mobile app can report the problem from the point and moment of discovery. This simply leads to much more community participation.
Pothole.info: Your app was developed specifically for Portland by your department. How much did it cost and do you think you have an advantage with your own?
Nixon: Actually, we have an app development specialist here on staff who was already working on a mobile mapping app. He managed to build this in his own time, so the costs were quite minimal. We like how this app works because it is designed to marry into the existing workflow. We have our in-house ticketing system for processing and completing work orders and it is now a seamless part of that.
Pothole.info: How many people use it and what do you think will happen in your second winter pothole season?
Nixon: Between February and September 2010 we received 625 pothole reports. We added the Droid app in September and as of December 2010 we know that 7,000 apps have been downloaded. So we expect we will get more reports in this year – and we're ready.
Pothole.info: What has been the public's response in Portland and elsewhere?
Nixon: Both the media and citizen response is positive and favorable [media coverage was widespread, well outside of the greater Portland area]. It boils down to extensive citizen participation, which is good. We've made the software open sourced so other cities can take advantage of it, and several are.
Building pothole apps elsewhere
Indeed, there are many cities building their own phone apps, "Government 2.0" as some are calling it, to enable reporting of potholes and other matters. The general term for such apps that pull people together in a single cause is referred to as "crowdsourcing."
In Chicago, it's not the city itself but a candidate for city alderman who developed "Chicago Works," a place for involved citizens to report potholes, graffiti and broken street lights. The candidate receives the reports directly in her office, which she then forwards to the appropriate parties at the city. Why would a candidate do this? She's building a constituency of community support.
This is similar to what was described in an ABC News special report on March 29, 2010 regarding the convergence of politics and technology.
According to Brent Blackaby, an online political strategist in the story, mobile software keeps voters engaged with an elected official during his or her term, yet avoids crossing the line between governing responsibilities and campaigning. Elected individuals need "to communicate with the people that support them [to show] all the good things that the elected official is doing so that people are still connected," says Blackaby. Those voters are "still in the loop with what's happening. When it comes time for campaign season to begin again, you've got a strong base of support and a strong team of people online, you have grassroots support behind you."
Clearly, they don't call it pothole politics for nothing.
Certainly, the ability of a mayor and a streets department or state department of transportation to fix potholes in a reasonable period of time can make or break an election. So it might just be a matter of smart governance that a number of cities have similarly developed their made-for-there pothole reporting apps. Each city takes a slightly different approach:
Boston: As previously reported on Pothole.info, a full 8,500 phones had downloaded Boston Citizens Connect 2.0 by early 2010. National Public Radio interviewed Boston resident Heather Sears, who formerly went through the bureaucracy of reporting problems to city hall. Sears clearly embraces phone app technology in her personal campaign to clean up the city (the app also includes graffiti reporting). "My graffiti picture is going to the dude who's going to fix the graffiti!" she says. "Directly to the dude! And that feels good."
Sandy Springs, Georgia: This Atlanta suburb launched its phone app, CoSSpotter, on December 1, 2010, which is available in iPhone, Blackberry and Android formats. And you thought they didn't get potholes in Georgia? This case shows such an app can be applied on a very local basis.
San Antonio, Texas (Bexar County): The app is called YourGOV, and it allows reporting of both potholes and roadkill (Armadillos, one assumes). The city worked with software developers CarteGraph who, according to Bexar County Engineer Renée Green, P.E., "It's a real change for an industry that typically lives by the Big Chief tablet and No. 2 pencil. This helps us be more efficient."
Los Angeles County and San Bernadino (California) County: With a population of 10 million and more streets, highways and roads than movie starlets, the CitySourced app launched in November 2010 and is usable on iPhone, Blackberry and Android formats. With so many convertibles and drivers on cellphones – and one of the most pothole-ridden cities in the country – one can only imagine how busy the county highway department will be as more and more people download the free app (most civic apps are provided without charge or are very inexpensive).
Long Beach, California: Named "Go Long Beach," this smartphone app allows citizens to report road, sidewalk and wall (graffiti) damage, but will eventually include broken water fountains in public parks, illegal dumping, missing street signs, overgrown weeds and sidewalk damage. "The 'Go Long Beach' App helps keep our community safe, clean and beautiful," Mayor Bob Foster told the Long Beach Post. The city's Director of Public Works, Michael Conway, told the paper, "The app will help us be even more responsive, because the quicker we know about a problem, the quicker we can fix it."
Charlotte, North Carolina: "My Charlotte" launched in November 2010 and can be purchased through iTunes, with Blackberry and Android versions a bit later. The app applies to pothole reporting, graffiti and accidents that cause traffic tieups. Its development cost $100,000, but is part of a broader program development they call "Margaret," an avatar that can answer many questions from the city databases. Margaret will operate via interactive voice response.
There's no such thing as "hush hush sweet Charlotte" if there are potholes to fix. This town is ambitious – and a place to watch, because if it works it could take the relationship between citizens and cities to a whole new level.
National apps – and what it might add up to
Entrepreneurs everywhere are jumping on the app rush with just about anything that marries cellular mobility with a function. Pothole reporting is no different, with the introduction of at least three players: SaveMyTire.com, SeeClickFix and 311 Universal.
SaveMyTire is the newest entry into the nationwide pothole reporting apps. Available for iPhone and Android platforms, it claims several functions that will make its reports more authentic. Those include a filtering method for identifying false reports. It also blocks multiple submissions by the same smartphone in the same geographical area (to prevent one person trying to scream attention for their particular pothole, we assume). SaveMyTire also requires "a certain threshold of reports on a given area before it is considered a genuine pothole location." Once reports reach that threshold, participating road maintenance departments are contacted via email.
It remains to be seen how well SaveMyTire manages to build up those relationships, while also getting the app distributed deeply enough such that the critical mass is reached to achieve effectiveness. But it seems to be working toward a goal of authenticity and veracity. If they are successful, it could be the killer app to define the category.
According to the online magazine Drivers.com, "the real benefits of [pothole reporting apps] lie in the ability to create 'neighborhood groups' and 'watch areas' to monitor issues and get feedback on results. In other words, it's entirely conceivable that individuals will take on pothole reporting as a mission, perhaps in teams, where such individuals will alleviate the workload of city, county and state employees who are otherwise responsible for identifying where the problem areas are.
That's the good news. The bad news might be that some neighborhoods or roads will get disproportionate attention because they are well organized, while others – perhaps where economics cuts into smartphone availability – get less. But given the free nature of these apps, and the likely full distribution of advanced cellular product availability, this problem will likely diminish over time.
SeeClickFix is another national pothole app that heeds this idea of community involvement. In fact, its tagline is "Power to the Community." There is a Community Groups page on the service's website that encourages volunteers to use SeeClickFix to "amplify their voices…by helping community leaders find and connect with others who care" via the app. Members of the community can post a head shot and earn civic points for reporting potholes, other pavement issues, graffiti and failed traffic control features (broken or missing lights and signs). The site has been up at least since 2008 and shows signs of a developing community with many members.
311 Universal enables citizens to shoot and send images and GPS coordinates for any kind of city problem that would otherwise be reported on a 3-1-1 non-emergency line. According to developer Steve Barham, reporting anything from vandalism to potholes will help cities and police departments to notice patterns that lead to better preventive law enforcement.
But as is abundantly clear, just recognizing and reporting a problem doesn't get it fixed. There are funding concerns across the board with regard to street repairs. This may limit what crews and materials are available for the "fix" phase of the workflow.
On the other hand, the political impetus to respond to constituents may be what drives success with pothole apps. The nation's roads are deteriorating faster than they are currently being repaired due to budget limitations. So citizen ire and subsequent reporting can only grow over time.
Consequently it likely will become very hard for elected officials to ignore the increasing number of pothole app reports. From that it's not hard to envision the net effect to be smoother roads – proving a real, quality-of-life benefit can actually result from gee-whiz technology.

Cities & Communities