Colorado Springs businessman frustrated with potholes, takes matters into his own hands

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- You could call Paul Kim the pothole patriot, or the pothole pursuer.

"I don't think we're the worst," he said. "Maybe we are, but I would definitely put us in top five. I mean, I can't see how it could get any worse. I really don't. I've been in other cities in other states where roads are in much better shape."

Kim owns two businesses and says that allows him to devote time to his new mission of looking for potholes, documenting them and reporting them to the city.

Three weekends ago, he wrote a social media post that has since received nearly 500 responses; he explained that he was so tired of driving into potholes that he wanted to do something about it.

KRDO13's Road Warrior, Scott Harrison, recently rode along with Kim as he searched for potholes along North Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway; the car often shook from the impact of hitting them.

"There's some," he remarked as he drove and looked around. "We just hit one there, that was a big one."

It wasn't until Kim started his project that he learned of the city's GoCOS smartphone app that allows citizens to send the location , description and photos of potholes.

"I've reported on around 50 so far," he said. "My goal was to check back every 30 days on the city's response. So far, I'm seeing that a lot of my requests have been resolved."

The city has eight daily pothole crews that rely on citizen feedback to prioritize and respond to pothole requests.

"We need to have more people reporting these potholes," Kim said. "If we did, we'd have far fewer of them. When I downloaded the app, I was disappointed to see that only 2,000 people had downloaded it. People tend to notice them and complain about them, but not report them. We need to change that."

A city spokesman agrees, saying that he supports Kim's mission and encourages others to join him.