Fixing a hole

LYNN – Calvin Johnson has learned to take a live-and-let-live attitude concerning potholes, even after one of the winter menaces damaged his car.”I learned a long time ago there is nothing you can do,” Johnson said.They may be a part of the cold weather landscape, as predictable as road salt and snow drifts, but potholes generate dozens of complaints to the city public works department from drivers and keep DPW road patching crews crisscrossing the city to fill holes.Acting Interim Public Works Commissioner J.T. Gaucher said city employees logged 100 pothole complaints since December with more than half of the complaints called in after the Jan. 21 snowstorm.Gaucher said potholes are created by temperature shifts that freeze, then thaw asphalt roads. Tires rolling over roads loosen asphalt pieces until they separate from the road and a pothole is born. Winter temperature shifts – even from freezing to moderately cold – speed up the amount of time it takes potholes to appear.”This is the worst time of year,” he said.Gaucher said several factors contribute to how potholes are prioritized for repair, including the hole’s size and traffic volume on the street where the hole is located. “We want to know, are they going to eat a car?” he said.Weather permitting, pothole crews try to dump one to two tons of asphalt a day into holes across the city. The best repair jobs involve using hot mix asphalt from the Aggregate Industries plant in Peabody. If hot mix is not available, Gaucher said DPW workers dip into the city’s 15-ton supply of “high performance cold patch” to repair holes.Extremely cold weather, falling snow and rain keep crews from repairing holes, and Gaucher said repair jobs do not always survive a constant beating from tires and the constant winter freeze-thaw cycle.”They blow out again and you have to patch it,” he said.Lynn driver Jorge Davila said the city needs to “put more resources” into pothole repairs, especially in a city where older cars in various states of repair are subject to winter beatings.”My boss hit a pothole and broke his wheel,” Davila said.Erika Guevara said the city does a “so-so” job repairing potholes, but she acknowledged winter takes its toll on local roads.Gaucher said streets across the city where potholes commonly crop up have been repaved in recent years in an effort to eliminate potholes.Gaucher said most complaints help city workers identify and quickly repair holes.”Some people can’t help but be nasty – but they are few and far between,” he said.