Potholes

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – With the seasonal snow and ice removal along with the continuous freezing and thawing, streets become a fertile environment for growing potholes. 

This winter has inundated the area with an ice storm that street crews are still chipping away at and once that is finished their attention turns to potholes.

Zanesville Mayor Don Mason gave some insight to how Winter presses street crews and how the city responds.

“So right now we have four crews of three people each and equipment. Plus we’re using our sewer vacuum to try to suck some of the water out of some of the holes,” Mason said. “We are trying to use cold-patch if we have to, but really trying to hot-mix, and ultimately, paving equipment to fix some of the areas that are just really bad.”

Mason explained that the cold patch asphalt isn’t as enduring as hot mix asphalt because it doesn’t bond very well and hot mix is available this winter because of the Interstate 70 construction.

The city factors snow removal and street repair into the general maintenance budget but there are usually unknown and unpredictable events that financiers have to factor in.

“There are times in a calendar year where we have to move funds around to cover additional, again it might be salt, it might be an aggregate of some sort or it might be asphalt,” Mason said.

Mason stressed the crews work pretty hard through rough weather then have to transition to street repair. Additionally, other city crews such as the Parks & Cemetery, are used for cleaning sidewalks and sewer crews are kept busy cleaning storm drains and assisting street crews.

The city has a web page with a form for reporting potholes that can be accessed by clicking here.