Numerous potholes filled on two private roads to shopping areas in Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- This spring and summer, KRDO 13's The Road Warrior received many complaints from viewers about two pothole-infested roads on the city's northeast side.

Drivers will be happy to know -- if they don't already -- that the potholes have been filled.

The Road Warrior reported in May about Duryea Drive, near the intersection of Powers Boulevard and Woodmen Road; and about Democracy Point, near the intersection of Voyager Parkway, in the Interquest area.

While many drivers complained to city officials about the roads, The Road Warrior confirmed that the roads actually are privately owned and not maintained by the city; Duryea leads to the Pikes Peak Center shopping area and is owned by the Walmart there, while Democracy point was built by the owners of the nearby Victory Ridge commercial and residential development.

A driver notified The Road Warrior on Sunday that the potholes on Democracy were fixed recently; the potholes appeared to be on the westbound side, which is wider than the eastbound side.

"I think it happened last weekend," one driver explained. "They had the road closed and I wondered what was going on."

The largest pothole on Democracy moved a local motorcyclist to use stones from nearby landscaping to temporarily fill it.

"It's a lot smoother," said driver Lawrence Ellsworth. "Not as rough. That's always a plus. I visually noticed them (before) but driving at night, it's very hard to notice them -- not unless you have high beams on."

Another driver, David Irizarry, also is glad the potholes were repaired.

"It was very terrible," he recalled. "It was very bouncy. I'm in a lifted truck, so it's not terrible for me. But I imagine some of these smaller cars, I saw them struggling."

More than a dozen potholes were patched between the Voyager intersection and a bock east to the entrance to a Maverik convenience store; the road still isn't in the best condition because the crew only patched the potholes and didn't repave the road.

It's unclear whether the road will be repaved later; Victory Ridge never responded to The Road Warrior's request for information about the pothole situation -- which isn't unusual when KRDO 13 made similar requests in the past to owners of private roads with potholes.

In May, however, a Walmart spokesperson said that the company was aware of the pothole complaints on Duryea, and promised that the road would be repaired this summer..

Sure enough -- although it's unclear exactly when it happened -- the entire road was repaved, and striped with lane markings and crosswalks.

Another entrance between Powers and Duryea also was repaved, but the adjacent exit lane was not, and still has potholes; it's possible that lane may be repaved in the future.

The strategy of using landscaping stones to fill a large pothole was copied for one on an access road along 8th Street, between Texas Roadhouse and Sonic; that pothole has been patched and recurring several times since KRDO 13 first reported on it in 2014.

The pavement on an adjacent access road to the Texas Roadhouse and a Shell gas station also needs repair, with cracked concrete pavement and large potholes developing.

Drivers who want to complain to private property owners about potholes should look on the websites of county assessors' offices, where you can enter addresses and learn who the owners are and contact them.

Still, the process can be difficult because some owners are overseen by property management companies that are in other states.

A driver who complained about the Duryea potholes said that once he learned Walmart owned the road, he kept filing complaints over and over again.

"That's what it takes to get action," he said. "I know that news stations can't be everywhere at once, or cover every pothole situation. It's up to citizens to get involved and use the power they have."

The three pothole areas mentioned in this article were eventually repaired after either KRDO 13 or The Road Warrior reported on them and made the owners aware of driver complaints.