The Pothole Predicament: Officials say 2C can help fix

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Navigating the roads of southern Colorado, many drivers encounter a common frustration: potholes. The wide range of weather conditions in the Pikes Peak Region contributes to significant damage to the city’s infrastructure, as water seeps into road cracks, exacerbating the problem.

“With all of that water underneath the roadways, compromising that subgrade with the traffic on the roadways, inevitably you’re going to have a lot of potholes, due to the wet year that we’ve had,” Corey Farkas, Public Works Operations and Maintenance Division Manager for the City of Colorado Springs, said. “Over the last eight years, we’ve had some years that are really dry. We’ve had years that we haven’t plowed snow until January in that particular year.”

The ever-changing weather, along with the aging infrastructure, causes this inconvenience to appear throughout the city. The city shared that 9,298 potholes were repaired last month, with typically 330 potholes filled a day.

“I’ve gotten letters, I’ve gotten emails, I’ve gotten texts, and what I can tell you is that our team is working hard and diligently to fix these potholes,” Mayor of Colorado Springs, Yemi Mobolade, said. “Our team has received more than 4,000 pothole requests from residents this year and this March alone, public works have filled more than 10,000 potholes.”

To help ensure the safety and comfort of drivers throughout the city, there is a request system in place to report potholes it can be filled out online or over the phone at 719-385-ROAD (7623).

The city has 13 pothole trucks working to help repair roadways, Farkas said the trucks are very expensive costing “upwards of $300,000 for one truck.”

There are two different methods that the city uses when faced with these pavement pits, it is either a pothole fill or a pothole repair. On Thursday, crews demonstrated the repair method out front of Martinez Elementary School, which typically helps stick around the longest.

“They’re going to go ahead and take a jackhammer; they’ll square out that hole,” Farkas said. “They’ll fix any compromised subgrade that’s underneath, compact it. They’ll tack the sides with tack, and they’ll put hot mix asphalt in that hole and compact, that’s the repair method.”

While the day’s efforts contribute to maintaining smooth roads, city officials stressed the necessity of renewing the 2C program, emphasizing it serves as an investment in the city’s infrastructure.

“Number one, the 2C road improvement program will help decrease the number of potholes and make our road smoother and safer,” Mayor Mobolade said. “Number two, the 2C road improvement program will help ensure that our roads and sidewalks are usable for people of all abilities, and number three, the 2C road improvement program will help save taxpayers that hard-earned money.”

The 2C program, launched in 2016, directs voter-approved sales tax revenue toward improving not only roads but also sidewalks, curbs, and gutters. When John Suthers was mayor, he acknowledged the pressing need for city repairs, advocating strongly for the establishment of 2C.

“At that point in time, two-thirds of our roads in Colorado Springs were in poor condition,” Suthers said. “When I say poor condition, I don’t mean, ‘gee, they look bad,’ I mean, Corey and his folks go over it with machinery and objectively assess it as being in poor condition.”

To shed light on how the infrastructure got so bad, Suthers provided a “historical perspective” directly referencing previous policies.

“In the early 1990s, the city eliminated a one-half cent infrastructure tax that had been enacted to keep up with the pace of the growth of the community and our infrastructure demands,” said Suthers.

Last month, the City of Colorado Springs published an updated website highlighting all the work that has been done over the past few years.

Colorado Springs launches website showing impact of 2C

Combining forces of old and new mayors, the two are determined to ensure the 2C program is renewed. Mayor Mobolade said later this year he will ask the City Council to place the 2C program on the November ballot for voters to decide its fate.

“Without raising taxes, we will ask our Colorado Springs residents this November to vote yes to renew 2C,” Mobolade said. “To continue the work to cure our roads, all our roads, including your neighborhood streets.”

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