Mild winter, less traffic creating a smooth drive
Everybody loathes COVID-19, but there’s a silver lining: Fewer potholes this winter.
By this time of year, drivers would normally be scowling about the number of potholes dotting our roads, a result of precipitation and cold weather that is typical of a southern Ontario winter.
But winter was just a rumour until it finally showed up a couple weeks ago, after December and most of January brought almost nothing but warmer than average weather.
The conditions needed to create potholes — snow or rain and freeze-and-thaw weather — were conspicuously absent until the last week of January.
Even then, there hasn’t been much snow.
That’s why we’ve had such a soft ride so far. As of Feb. 4, the city has filled 16,028 potholes, about one-third less than the 24,453 that were filled during the same period last year.
It’s less than half of the 41,756 potholes filled as of Feb. 4 in 2018, the last time we had an extended period of old-fashioned winter.
And with traffic volumes substantially lower due to the COVID lockdown that began right after Christmas, there hasn’t been enough salt, moisture, wintry weather and vehicles to pulverize the asphalt.
“Because it’s been so mild we
haven’t seen a lot of freeze-thaw cycles or precipitation, and that’s why we’ve seen some of the numbers drop,” said Mark Mills, a city manager of road operations.
“Also, because we’ve been in lockdown, traffic volumes are down, and that also plays a role,” he said, noting that potholes start with vehicles passing over loosened asphalt.
“What causes a pothole is when water gets in under the asphalt and then it freezes and expands, and then there’s a thaw and it leaves a void and then the traffic drives over it, breaking up the asphalt.”
Patching of potholes has also happened quickly, “because the same people who patch them are the people who fight the snow,” said Mills, adding that they’ve seldom been needed to clear snow so far, leaving them available for potholes.
Toronto budgeted about $220 million for road maintenance last year and typically spends $2 million to $4 million annually on pothole repairs, he said, at an average cost of about $25 per patch.
Given the wintry weather lately, and with more cold in the forecast, Mills figures we’re due for an increase in potholes. When it happens, a Saturday patching blitz, where upwards of 100 workers hit the roads to fill as many as they can, is likely to follow, he added.
The city tries to patch all potholes reported to 311 within four days, a target it’s likely to meet, considering how few have sprouted so far.