Potholes persist despite paving progress in Colorado Springs, El Paso County
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Officials in the county and in Colorado Springs say that they're repairing as many as or more potholes than they did last year, even with more streets repaved than ever before.
County crews have patched 12,000 potholes, 3,000 more than last year; city crews have repaired more than 92,000 -- which may fall just short of two recent years with a record of over 100,000.
There are several reasons for the increases: Crews are still catching up from an unusually wet spring and summer of 2023; more potholes are being reported; and officials have more crews on duty to fill the mini-craters.
Last week, a county supervisor said that his crews are more fixing potholes that they come across, and fewer that are reported by citizens.
Some citizens may be unclear about who's responsible for pothole repairs in certain areas; that apparently was the case recently when a large pothole opened up at the intersection of Highway 85/87 (state jurisdiction) and Las Vegas Street (county jurisdiction).
The county supervisor mentioned above discovered the pothole shortly after KRDO 13's The Road Warrior arrived to check it out on a viewer's tip.
"It's right on the county/CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) line," the supervisor said. "We decided it was better to just go ahead and patch it instead of worry about whose responsibility it is."
Heather Smith, who alerted The Road Warrior to the pothole, expressed relief.
"The potholes on this road are absolutely ridiculous," she said. "And it's just constant. They patch them, and then they just come right back. I'm always in fear that I'm going to get hit in an accident, or my tires are going to get destroyed."
Smith also pointed out several major potholes that were just around the corner on the highway bridge over Fountain Creek; The Road Warrior notified CDOT.
You can feel the bridge shake when a vehicle hits those potholes.
Jack Ladley, the county's deputy public works director, said that more resources are being devoted to pothole response.
"The good news is, I've got six pothole trucks," he revealed. "I've got an asphalt crew of roughly 20 to 21 people that are dedicated to taking care of our asphalt. That's not to say that they're all working on potholes every day. They have other duties, too. But we have at least one crew focusing on potholes every day."
Ladley said that a common location for potholes is the Colorado Centre community, south of the Colorado Springs airport -- an area that will get major street and drainage improvements over the next two years, as featured in a Road Warrior report last week.
Corey Farkas, the city's public works manager for operations and maintenance, said that he has at least eight daily crews responding to potholes and can increase that to 12 if needed.
'We're going to be taking a look at how we track our potholes, and what the best metric is, moving forward," he explained. "When we fill a long crack, should that count as one pothole or several? That would affect the overall number."
While some citizens are frustrated that potholes remain such an issue after nine years of expanded paving, Farkas said that it shows how many streets that can produce potholes still need repaving.
"The more streets we pave, the fewer potholes we'll have," he said.
Officials remind citizens to report potholes they see -- as soon as possible -- to the appropriate agency or municipality.
"I haven't been doing that," Smith confessed. "Because when I used to do that, nothing happened. I contacted (The Road Warrior) because that's when I see things getting done."
