Whomp! See which Edmonton neighbourhoods complain the most about potholes
CBC
Potholes in Edmonton are — Whomp! — a common enemy to everyone who uses the roads.
On neighbourhood streets and major arterials alike, potholes can cause flat tires, destroy wheel rims and wreak havoc on a vehicle's suspension, costing drivers hundreds or even thousands of dollars to repair.
They pose safety hazards to cyclists and pedestrians alike. Push a stroller through a pothole and — Whomp, again! — nap time is over for your sleeping baby.
As of Oct. 29, City of Edmonton crews had made 669,159 pothole and asphalt repairs this year. That's up more than 53,000 from the 615,321 repairs in all of 2020, which itself saw more fixes than in any of the four preceding years.
On average, the city has done more than half a million pothole and asphalt fixes each year over the past five years.
Since 2019, the city has worked harder at a "proactive approach" to finding and fixing asphalt defects before they are reported by the public, a city spokesperson told CBC News. Crews are now out fixing potholes year-round, and crew shifts are longer.
Meanwhile, many Edmontonians are using the 311 app, the city website, email or telephone calls to bring potholes to the city's attention.
CBC looked at 311 data showing every pothole complaint entry from 2016 through 2020.
The data shows that on average, 7,912 potholes are reported each year. Not all of them get fixed. Some are not found, or work is deferred because road work is happening soon in that area.
Two busy city neighbourhoods consistently showed high pothole complaint numbers: Strathcona and Downtown.
"The volume of road users has a direct impact on the number of notifications received as well," Eduardo Sosa, director of infrastructure maintenance with the City of Edmonton, said in an email.
"The city does prioritize areas with higher traffic volume, [like] business improvement areas and arterial roads."
Here are the top 50 pothole-complaints neighbourhoods from 2016 to 2020. Scroll over the interactive maps to view the numbers:
Each citizen complaint sparks a visit from a city crew to investigate. There are sometimes multiple complaints about a single pothole; CBC removed them from our calculations for better accuracy.
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