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Public works presents pothole program: winter freeze-thaw, staffing and funding explained
Summary
Public Works Director Steve Grone briefed the governing body on the city's pothole repair program, citing freeze–thaw damage as the primary cause, describing staff and equipment resources, and outlining how the city spends half-cent sales tax revenue on pavement management.
Steve Grone, director of public works, presented the city’s pothole program report at the April 8 meeting, explaining causes, crew capacity and how the city prioritizes repairs.
Grone said the street department maintains roughly 1,600 lane miles of streets and about 1,000 miles of alleys (about half paved), and that the department also owns and maintains 101 bridges. The street department has 51 employees, including 38 maintenance workers, two patch trucks and four hot-box trailers; during winter the department can field as many as seven crews to address potholes, and during summer crews vary between four and six depending on workload.
On causes, Grone emphasized the freeze–thaw cycle: water infiltrates pavement cracks, freezes and expands, and repeated cycles create voids that collapse under traffic. He described winter cold-mix patches as temporary fixes — ‘‘they could last between an hour and a week’’ depending on traffic — and contrasted those with hot-mix repairs performed in warm weather that use tack oil and compaction and typically last much longer.
Grone outlined funding: the citywide half-cent sales tax raises about $19 million annually; the street program spends just over $11 million of that on the pavement management program and roughly $4 million on contracted preventive maintenance such as microsurfacing and UBAS. He said the city contracts a pavement-condition consultant every three years to generate a PCI score; Topeka’s PCI has increased in recent assessments and staff expect another rise after the next data collection.
Council members pressed staff about specific problem corridors cited by residents, including 30th Street and concerns about sections of Buchanan and other neighborhood routes. Grone said segments of 30th Street are programmed for improvements over the next three years, with an overlay scheduled for specific segments next year, and that staff had already been out to take additional corrective actions.
Council members also asked whether winter temporary repairs could be improved and whether data on repeated repairs could justify earlier full-depth fixes. Grone said that while many experimental products have been tested, nothing matches hot mix for longevity; he said staff are working on improved field-tracking (AVL) to better document repeat repairs and that pavement-management staff already maintain condition records per street to inform prioritization.
Why it matters: The report ties the city's pavement-management investments to a combination of emergency winter work and planned reconstruction, explains limitations of winter repairs and clarifies how half-cent sales tax revenue is allocated to keep streets in a state of good repair.
