City Officials Say More Potholes Than Usual

Bend , Ore. – As snow and ice continue to melt from Bend’s roads, a familiar problem has revealed itself — potholes.

Patching potholes — and finding the money to do it — has been a longtime problem for the city of Bend, which doesn’t have a consistent stream of money to pay for road repairs. After record-breaking snowfall this winter, city officials estimate they will have to patch more potholes than usual.

City councilors also will have to decide if they should scrape up the money to cover roads with sealants to prevent potholes in the future.

Potholes are caused when water seeps into cracks in the road. During the winter months, roads are more vulnerable to potholes because the roads freeze and thaw, causing them to expand and contract. The process creates gaps beneath the asphalt. As cars and trucks drive over the asphalt, it breaks apart and creates potholes.

David Abbas, who heads Bend’s streets department, said potholes are more likely to form on Bend’s older streets, which are thinner than newer ones. In the early 2000s, the city required an asphalt layer at least 2 inches thick on residential streets. Now, it must be 4 inches thick on residential roads, and about 6 to 8 inches thick on main roads.

Some roads, said Abbas, such as portions of Parrell Road and 15th Street, are older and have so much damage from previous winters that they’ll need to be totally rebuilt. But there are other roads throughout the city that could be saved from potholes and cracks if the city pays to maintain them now.

Taking simple prevention measures such as painting roads with a sealant can extend the life of a street, said Abbas. For every dollar the city spends on preservation, it could save $6 to $10 on the costs to rebuild the road later, Abbas said.

In the meantime, the city could be forced to pay Bend residents if their vehicles are damaged by potholes.

Since December, about 13 people have filed claims against the city alleging their vehicles were damaged by potholes — for a total of about $10,000.

Of those 13 claims, six have been denied. The city is only liable to pay for people’s damages if city staff knew about a pothole and didn’t fix it within 48 hours, said city spokeswoman Anne Aurand.

But the potential costs to repair vehicles are on top of millions of dollars needed to improve Bend’s streets.

Right now, there isn’t enough money in the city’s street preservation budget to maintain current road conditions.

Potholes aren’t the only concerns this winter. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make snow-covered roads drivable, the city now needs to buy more of the black sanding rock it used to increase traction because it ran out this month. It switched back to using leftover red sanding rock it used several years ago.

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