Pot holes pot holes - what to do?


Pot holes seem to be every where and there are many reasons for them and those reasons can be found with a little time and work along with how to deal with them. One of the most common ways is to patch them with cold patch. I have looked at some resources in an effort to find thoughts, opinions, current practices and some facts in an attempt to perhaps get someone to at least think or look at things in a different way. Once again I will probably demonstrate to myself I am better off talking to my dog as he at least wags his tail as if to say he gets it when in fact he is just looking for another biscuit.


The original construction of roads are usually planned and scheduled for the right time of year when it is the temperature is warm and the threat from climatic change is less. When it comes to repairing roads, say from potholes, in an effort to keep traffic moving and the public quiet, especially around election time, is a little more challenging. Temporary cold patch is used for pothole patching in cold months. It is made so municipal road crews can go from pothole to pothole with little concern for the viscosity of the mix as the day wears on. A hot mix would harden up before the days end. Cold patch is not durable and is considered a temporary fix, intended to last until the warmer months when a more permanent hot mix can be used.


A U.S. government study on pothole repair, conducted by the strategic highway research program recommends the best materials available should be used to reduce the need for repeatedly patching the same potholes, because of poor quality materials, which quickly offsets the savings from purchasing a less expensive mix. The study went on to show in most cases, the poorer performance of cheap materials resulted in greater overall costs for labor, equipment, traffic control and user delay. I take from this that the use of cheap materials, either cold patch or sand in winter actually ends up costing more in the long run. What a concept, use quality rather than quantity and save money over time!


Since quality of material and production of quality material is pretty much out of a municipalities control, (what is the benefit to a local hot top producer to make a quality material that would end up in less sales?) produce a cheap cold patch which everyone will buy because, well it is cheap, up front and you get the (what I call, the Walmart effect, you buy cheap, you buy a lot and spend more) explanation: I bought a paring knife for $6.00 and it lasted a year, so next time in the store I went to buy another one except now it costs $7.00. As I grabbed for it, I stopped and thought if this one lasts a year and next year it goes to $8.00, I will have spent $21.00 in three years and that number will just keep growing. I put the knife back and stopped in a specialty shop for kitchen stuff, pots, pans, gadgets and knives. After some back and forth time, I bought a paring knife for $50.00 (damn!) which I still have and use today, 17 years later. Turns out that was money well spent. Back to potholes, so when warm weather gets here, what to do?


A suggestion would be to fix the potholes buy cutting out the bad asphalt area that is damaged and add base material if needed which is then compacted and then apply traditional heated hot top of proper depth and compact it with a heavy roller so when cooled, you end up with a piece of new road. This would end the need to keep going out over periods of time to reapply cold patch to existing potholes, which seems to be the way it is done in Templeton now. These fixes appear to show that no more time, material or fuel would be needed to keep putting cold patch on top of cold patch. If the tools and equipment needed to do this work is not in the hands of the highway department then it would seem prudent to use road monies, from the state and other sources, if any, to hire this done, thus freeing up the current highway employees to do other tasks that would come from the planning and direction of the highway superintendent. Once done, an analysis could be done on what was spent on cold patch (total costs to include man hours) vs. the costs of the more permanent fix.


It surely has to be worth the effort because of the possible long term savings that if demonstrated would demonstrate to the taxpayers that their money is indeed being spent wisely and then there could possibly be more support for more investment in town services to include equipment purchase/upgrades.


There is another suggestion, so how far will it go?


Jeff Bennett


PS: I heard the $28.00 per ton wood chips may now be in the $34.00 to $40.00 per ton neighborhood now. Hopefully in budget season, the district or the selectmen can produce a contract for chips for the next winter season with a definite price so then we can all do some math.