Meet Steve the sinkhole
Recent storms have peppered the region’s highways with a growing number of potholes
The Bay Area’s long drought is thankfully over, but now a suspension-rattling pain has arrived in full force — hundreds, perhaps thousands of potholes after weeks of almost constant downpours. Officials say this could be an unprecedented worsening of the already-crumbling roadways.
And unlucky drivers could pay a jolting price.
“We don’t have any numbers yet, but this is as bad as it’s ever been,” said Caltrans spokesman Bob Haus, who takes the long view — he’s been with the state for nearly two decades. The worst, he said, are the areas closest to San Francisco Bay — Highways 37 and 101; Interstates 80 and 880 — or near high water tables. “But no area has been immune.”
One of the nastiest problems has been a growing sinkhole on Highway 13 in Oakland that had Caltrans maintenance supervisor Bill Kimball scrambling Monday. It’s so massive
— maybe 5 feet across by 10 feet deep — that the CHP has named it “Steve the Sinkhole.”
Why Steve? “Why not?” the CHP tweeted back.
And a humorous update appeared soon after on the @CHPoakland Twitter account: “Steve the sinkhole will be nothing more than Andy the asphalt by tomorrow evening’s commute.”
Another high priority for state crews is Interstate 580 near Livermore, where one pothole is so big it’s exposing the rebar beneath the asphalt near North Flynn Road.
The car-eating crevasses were not unexpected, given the heavy rains, Haus said. That’s because vehicles’ tires squeeze rain into the asphalt, creating fissures that ultimately tear open. Or, the rain will wear away the sand and gravel underneath, causing what Caltrans officials call “slip-outs.”
One such slip-out has closed a stretch of Highway 1 in Marin County until at least April 30 and will require an estimated $5 million to repair, Haus said.
And near Highway 160 in Sacramento River Delta, “levee roads are just falling apart,” Kimball said.
Other hard-hit routes include Interstate 80 from the Carquinez Bridge to the Alameda-Contra Costa County line, Interstate 680 in the Walnut Creek area, plus Highway 24 near the Caldecott Tunnel and I-880 through Oakland and San Leandro.
“Potholes this year are about 75 percent worse than the previous drought years, with the continuing rain making it a challenge to keep up,” said San Leandro public works director Keith Cooke. “I am especially seeing potholes show up on our arterials with heavy truck and bus traffic.”
In San Jose, Monterey Road is on the city’s hot list. Also, on Bird Avenue under the “Welcome to Willow Glen” bridge, there is a nasty pothole in the right lane right at the very bottom of the dip a block away from I-280.
And then there’s the Peninsula. “I know that after the storms, Caltrans will have its hands full all over the place, but you might want to warn drivers about on 101 northbound in Redwood City and Belmont,” said motorist Kevin Cunningham of Foster City. “The right lane is missing several patches of pavement, about an inch or more deep, and in some cases a foot wide and several feet long. At higher speeds they could cause a jolt.”
Data on the impact of this winter’s storms won’t be fully known until sunny skies reappear. But last year’s pothole outbreak will seem mild by comparison, officials say, and that was considered the Bay Area’s biggest in at least five years.
From January through March in 2016, San Jose crews filled 4,228 potholes, nearly 1,100 more over the same period in 2015.
Oakland went on a sixweek blitz to fill 3,500 potholes.
As those numbers go up, so too could the toll on drivers. The AAA has reported that Bay Area residents pay around $1,000 per year for road-related damages to their vehicles.
Until this winter, that is.