As pothole seasons go, this one’s a doozy. It’s so bad, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called a press conference just to talk about otholes.
On Tuesday, March 14, he, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the city’s director of public works, and Joe Paumen, director of transportation maintenance and repair, gathered reporters to talk about potholes, how they form and what the city’s going to do about them. We checked in with our suburbs, too.
How potholes form
Blame it on the freeze-thaw cycle. Water naturally follows the path of least resistance. If there’s a crack in the pavement, that’s where it goes. If the temperature drops, that’s where the water freezes.
“We had rain in January, followed by 10-below weather,” said Jeremy Gumke, public works director for St. Anthony Village. “The weather has been so erratic.”
Paumen said the freeze-thaw cycle typically begins in February or March. “We’ve had a lot of snow, but it’s been a mild winter,” he said. Minneapolis Public Works crews began patching potholes in January. He said the heavy snowfalls between back-to-back cold snaps hindered their work.
He likens pothole formation to putting a can of pop in the freezer. The liquid expands as it freezes. When the liquid can expand no more, the pop can explodes. The same thing happens to our streets. David Cullen, superintendent of streets and parks in Columbia Heights, says water acts like “tiny jackhammers” on the street surface.
The resulting potholes may be round “like pancakes” Paumen said. These usually involve just the top layer of asphalt. “We’re seeing a lot of top-layer potholes,” he said. Deeper potholes may go down to the dirt roadbed.
Is this winter unusual?
Cullen calls it the “winter of multiple springs.” A Minnesota native, he recalls winters with heavy snowfalls or deep cold, but “I never have heard of a December/January rain.”
Anderson Kelliher, formerly the head of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said the last winter to have a long freeze-thaw cycle occurred in 2013-14. Minneapolis spent an additional $1 million dealing with potholes that year, she said. The
city budgets $1.3 million-$1.5 million for street repairs. The repair work done in January came out of the snow plowing budget. She expects pothole repairs to add another $1 million to the street repair budget this year.
On a five-year average, Minneapolis seal coats 20 miles of pavement, fills cracks in 30 miles of road and repairs or reconstructs 31 miles of streets.
With just 25 miles of streets, St. Anthony typically spends about $3,000 a year on street repairs. Gumke said potholes typically show up on streets and alleys that have not yet been repaired as part of the city’s 20-year street improvement plan. He said 31st Ave. NE and 33rd Ave. NE are in “critical” condition. “Thirty-third gets a lot of school bus traffic,” he noted.
Cullen said patching 37th Ave. NE, which forms the boundary between Minneapolis and Columbia Heights, keeps his crew busy. The street will undergo a complete reconstruction starting this spring.
Cold patch vs. hot patch
The patching material the three cities use is a mixture of sand and asphalt that’s applied cold to the pavement. Frey said, “It’s like putting cream cheese on a hot bagel. Some of it sticks, and some of it doesn’t.” It’s a temporary fix until hot asphalt can be applied.
Anderson Kelliher said Minneapolis has used 250 tons of cold patch this year.
Cullen said Columbia Heights prepares for winter by having 10 tons of cold mix on hand. “That usually gets us through the winter,” he said, “but we blew right through it this year.” His department scrambled to find a supplier of cold mix and finally found one in North St. Paul that anticipated the need for more material.
Hot mix is a more permanent type of paving made of sand, stone or gravel that’s heated before it’s mixed with asphalt. It’s more flexible and can be rolled smooth. However, it can only be used when nighttime temperatures stay above freezing, which usually happens in April.
The hot mix used by the three cities is made in a plant owned by the City of St. Paul that typically starts up in the beginning of April. Cullen said most asphalt plants are privately owned, and they wait until road construction begins to fire up their operations.
Seeking major money for parkways
The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) is not happy with the condition of the city’s 55 miles of parkways. Indeed. A drive down any one of the parkways in Northeast is a bone-shaking ride. You wonder if your car’s suspension can take it.
According to an MPRB fact sheet, the City of Minneapolis and MPRB entered into an agreement in 1999 in which the city would maintain and rehabilitate the parkways, including lighting as well as street surfaces. (The parkways are not eligible for state aid, gas tax or other funding sources typically used for city streets.) The allocation from the city budget was set at $750,000 per year, inflation not factored in. MPRB says that’s not enough. At the current rate, they say only about .6 of a mile of road can be resurfaced. In 15 years, the entire parkway system would be in shambles.
At a March 15 MPRB Administration and Finance committee, committee members viewed a 2017 chart showing the condition of the parkways. St. Anthony Pkwy. and Stinson Pkwy. were in poor condition then, and they’ve only gotten worse.
Citing their desire to be good stewards of the parks and parkway system, the committee passed a resolution calling for a yearly allocation of $6 million per year from the city for parkway repairs, starting in 2024. This would repave the streets and allow for ADA upgrades at intersections, as required by city ordinance.
“All hands on deck”
At the news conference, Frey said public works crews would be activated for pothole repair much like they would be for a snow emergency. “We’ve authorized overtime and weekend work for our public works crew and put on additional crews.” He urged residents to call 311 to report potholes. “Help us better help you,” he said.
More than 80 inches of snow has fallen on the Twin Cities this year, and it’s only mid-March. It’s reasonable to expect the freeze-thaw cycle – and potholes – will continue for some time.
If you see a pothole …
To report potholes in Minneapolis, call 311; in Columbia Heights, call 763-706-3700 or use the “Report a Concern” form on the city’s website; in St. Anthony, call 612-782- 3441.
Frey also asked homeowners to keep storm sewers clear of sticks and other debris so elted snow has somewhere to run.
Under the BNSF Railway bridge at Lowry Ave. and 7th St. NE, pavement has worn down to the city’s old cobblestones. (Photo by Cynthia Sowden) Frozen water in a pothole on East Island Avenue on Nicollet Island. (Photo by Nik Linde)
