Take me home, bumpy roads: Cracked-up streets rack up more than 100 complaints a day
CBC
Calgary's roads have more potholes than usual right now, and drivers are noticing.
Complaints to the City of Calgary about potholes and roadway repairs have gone way up this year. From April 1 to the morning of May 31, there have been 6,267 requests for pothole or roadway maintenance recorded through Calgary's 311 service. And that tally doesn't include duplicate complaints made by citizens about the same pothole.
Regardless, that's a new record for most complaints in a single quarter, and there's still a month to go.
"There are more potholes this year than we've seen historically," Chris Hewitt, manager for mobility maintenance for the city, told CBC News.
"We had a pretty perfect storm of various things over the winter which have led to a situation where you would expect more potholes than in previous years."
Hewitt says a variety of factors play into why Calgary's pothole situation is worse than what's typically expected in the spring.
"We had a number of freeze-thaw cycles over the winter and that's really your No.1 kind of lead into potholes come spring," he said.
"You get water into the road, it's freezing up, it's doing that 10, 20, 30 times over the winter … it does cause havoc under the roads."
Another challenge for the city this year has been the spring snowfall.
Typically, the city is able to repair potholes throughout February and March, but the inconsistent winter season stuck around until near mid-April.
What's more, Hewitt says the overall pavement quality index (PQI) has decreased, adding another layer of stress to Calgary's roads.
CBC News previously reported that, since 2015, the city's PQI has gradually declined following budget cuts over the past few years. That led to city council approving a $23-million investment over 2024-26 for road maintenance.
"Any of the savings that we have seen from snow removal gets put directly towards fixing potholes and road maintenance in our city," Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek told reporters at City Hall on Tuesday.
This year, the amount of money left over from the snow budget comes to $8.9 million, according to the city's mobility department.
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