Billions spent but potholes rule in city

Nearly seven years since the earthquakes, and despite billions of dollars spent on road repairs, Christchurch appears to be the pothole capital of New Zealand.

Last year, the Christchurch City Council received 994 complaints about potholes, spent over $525,000 fixing more than 19,000 (at about $27 each) and paid out $2000 in compensation for vehicle damage.

The Wellington City Council spent

$12,782 repairing 394 potholes in the last financial year, and the Dunedin City Council spent $27,000 identifying and repairing 4500 potholes. Further south, the Invercargill City Council spent about

$60,000.

Auckland Transport did not keep pothole-specific spending records, which came under its $13.6 million ‘‘sealed road carriageway maintenance’’ budget (comprising potholes repairs and digout repairs), but claimed to spend more per kilometre of road than any other place.

Christchurch City Council road maintenance manager Mark Pinner attributed the prevalence of potholes in the city to a harsh winter and post-quake roadworks pushing traffic onto roads unaccustomed to a heavy traffic load.

In 2011 the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (Scirt) was formed with the goal of rebuilding Christchurch’s quake-damaged horizontal infrastructure. Scirt was billed as a cost-effective and efficient way to quickly get Christchurch’s civil infrastructure back on its feet. About $2.2 billion was funded by the Government and Christchurch City Council for the 51⁄2-year programme. It encompassed more than 700 projects across the city.

‘‘Because of all of the work in that period we weren’t able to do all the normal maintenance we would always like, so, in some cases, the roads seal has been stretched a little bit further,’’ said Pinner.

He said winter’s rain saturated the ground. Moving cars caused a hydraulic action, which pulled the seal from the roads.

The council expected contractors to repair potholes promptly – within a day for major roads and three days for minor roads – and to a high standard, he said.

They were expected to dig 20mm deep into a pothole before filling it with the correct material. The edge of the pothole then needed to be chiselled so it had a straight edge. Finally, the surface needed to be level and clear of ‘‘unbound material’’.

Pinner said the council accepted it would take more than 10 years to get the roads back to normal.

Yet a drive around the city can find plenty of potholes and, judging by appearances, shoddy pothole repairs.

University of Canterbury associate engineering professor Mofreh Saleh said he had noticed many examples where the materials were applied and compacted incorrectly.

He said emergency repairs – where a pothole was simply filled with asphalt – was allowable as a temporary solution in winter months, but was against national code of practice when done in summer.

‘‘If it is done correctly, it shouldn’t come back,’’ he said.

Pinner, who disputes the so-called code of practice, said the council accessed weather conditions before making repairs and would only do an emergency repair to keep roads functioning during bad weather.

Wheel-alignment specialist Jason McConnell said about three times a week someone came to his store with potholerelated vehicle damage. Blown tyres and bent steel rims were most common, he said.

A recent customer had two blown tyres, two bent wheels and spent $460 for repairs.

McConnell had noticed a 150mm-deep pothole on Pages Rd near the Eastgate shopping mall that was repaired about every 10 days.

‘‘Where the potholes are, are very busy roads and they [road crews] probably don’t have time to shut them down to fix it properly and they’re probably just patching it.’’

Darfield local Maggie Mackinnon uses Kirk Rd every day and said it was ‘‘absolutely terrible for potholes’’, with one appearing every second day.

‘‘They’re basically just covering them over and then, within basically 24 hours, with the traffic that’s on that road, the potholes are back again. It’s just frustrating . . . these patch jobs are not good.’’

Pinner said once repaired, potholes were logged so the council could check the quality of the job. The council’s random auditing process tested about 190 potholes each month.

‘‘We are improving and we will do more audits of that work, but we certainly do go and look at them and we have actually removed payment for some if they failed.’’

A site manager for a Christchurch construction company who deals with resurfacing roads, Stephen Malzard, said the council should micro-manage contractors so repairs were more efficient.

‘‘It’s demoralising as a citizen having to drive around on these rubbish roads when there’s no need for it.’’