South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg took to the streets today for a demonstration in pothole filling.
Now that it’s stopped snowing, street crews are off plowing and on to filling some potholes. And Tuesday, the mayor was helping.
“Water seeps into the little cracks in the road, turns into ice, the ice expands and begins dislodging some of the asphalt and the passing cars do the rest," Buttigieg said. "That’s why you see so many holes in the road and you’ll see more of them in the spring having gone through a few more of these freeze thaw cycles.”
Right now, crews are using cold patch. It’s actually pretty hot, it steams as it cools in the holes, but it’s a temporary patch that doesn’t involve real asphalt which you can’t get this time of year.
“Any mayor is always thinking about, how do we make sure we stay on top of it. There are tens of thousands of potholes created every season, but we fill in as many as we can, even when it’s not yet warm enough to have the asphalt plants open and be doing the resurfacing,” Buttigieg said.
A crew can fill a couple hundred potholes a day. And they’ll be out every day until it snows again and they have to go back to plowing snow and spreading salt.
South Bend residents can report a pothole by calling 311.