Manitou Springs shares its pothole repair, reporting strategy

MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- It won't belong before ice, snow and colder temperatures cause potholes to form and develop and local streets and roads.

Manitou Springs is preparing now to stay ahead of the peak pothole period.

Being a smaller town makes pothole-patching more manageable; through July, Manitou crews had filled 242 potholes compared to 237 at the same time a year ago.

The town's public service director, Roy Chaney, said that because Manitou doesn't have dedicated pothole repair crews as neighboring Colorado Springs does, he relies on citizens reporting potholes as soon as they see them.

"We have a see See-Click-Fix app that is available to the public to report any road problems from potholes," he explained. "And then, we try to get on them as quickly as can, as long as we have the supplies in-house. And during the off-season, that becomes a problem."

Chaney said that the app works well; in fact, too well at times.

"It's actually working pretty well, to the point that we had to put some restrictions on making sure that there's an email attached, stuff like that, because we do get overwhelmed with requests," he said.

Last week, crews filled numerous potholes on the town's section of Serpentine Drive -- a winding, crumbling road on the west end of town -- in advance of a chip-sealing project that will stabilize the pavement until it can be re-paved next year.

To patch potholes, crews across southern Colorado traditionally use hot-mix asphalt in warmer weather and cold-mix asphalt in colder weather; hot-mix is a longer and more effective process in which crews cut out the area around a pothole before filling it; cold-mix is a quick and simple process to fill a pothole when most asphalt plants have shut down for the season.

Some municipalities also use a liquid, synthetic asphalt that is mixed with aggregate material -- similar to small rocks used in chip-sealing -- and hardens into a durable surface.

The brand Manitou uses is Top Patch.

"It costs more, but it's probably worth it," Chaney said. "So, we're starting to say Hey! Let's go ahead and use that. And we're starting to make that decision more and more as we're seeing that last longer. So, we're still trying some other stuff out there. They seem to be making new stuff all the time."

He said that Top Patch is the right combination of affordability and effectiveness for the town.