Colorado Springs’ incoming mayor wants more pothole, sidewalk repairs
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Expanded street paving and stormwater improvements were two major accomplishments by departing Mayor John Suthers, and his successor has other public works upgrades in mind.
At the end of a news conference last week to reveal the blueprint for his first 100 days in office, Mayor-elect Yemi Mobolade said that he'd like to see more repairs to potholes and sidewalks.
"Potholes and sidewalks are two of most common concerns I hear about from residents," he told KRDO as he was leaving the event. "I know the city has already been doing work on those, but we need to do more."
In 2015, potholes had become such a concern that Suthers campaigned for his first term on a sales tax increase -- the 2C program -- to expand paving over a ten-year period; voters approved the measure and the program is now in its eighth year.
However, public works officials have always emphasized that 2C would repave only a third of city streets by the end of 2025, leaving the potential for more pothole development and repair.
"Really, to do more than we're already doing would take more resources as we move forward.," said Corey Farkas, manager of the city's public works maintenance and operations division. "So, what the mayor-elect plans on doing, we haven't had the discussions at this point in time. My plan is to keep doing what we're doing. The plan is the plan, until the plan changes."
Officials previously said that the number of potholes is caused by several factors, including the addition of more streets as the city grows and the addition of more crews who can respond to repairs sooner.
The city has from nine to 12 crews filling potholes daily, Farkas said.
Some potholes may take longer to fill, based on their size; the city prioritizes larger potholes and those on busier streets.
Public works has created test strips of new paving materials and techniques, to learn if they can save money or be more effective on a wider scale.
"We don't have results yet because we need more test strips and analyze them over several years," Farkas explained.
KRDO found that in the past week, the city received 184 requests for pothole repairs; 127 are in progress of repair, 47 have had repairs completed and ten await processing.
In the same period, the city completed all 14 requests for repaving and all 15 requests for sidewalk repairs.
"Sidewalks are a little easier for us to respond to," Farkas said. "The repaving requests were for streets that are already covered under 2C."
According to statistics provided by the city, the annual number of pothole repairs has decreased from more than 100,000 in 2020 to 62,000 last year and is at 34,000 so far this year.
In 2017, Suthers also convinced voters to resume a fee for stormwater infrastructure; the fee was enacted in 2010 but proved so unpopular that the City Council rescinded it the following year.
