Potholes, Meet "Pothole Killer"

City Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein is hoping a new approach to filling potholes he used while he was Washington, DC's transportation commissioner will pay similar dividends in Chicago.

Klein has leased four "pothole killer" systems - trucks equipped with a telescopic arm that can fill a pothole in 60 seconds - and it testing them out across the city. CDOT employs four to five crews of up to four persons each to tend to potholes during the summer and up to 20 such crews during the winter months when potholes can eat our young. If the pothole killers, which the city is leasing at a cost of $50,000 per month each, prove to be successful in tackling the Chicago breed of pothole, some of the manpower CDOT dedicates to pothole repair can be switched over to street paving and other areas.

A similar test of a pothole filling machine failed three years ago, leading Laborers Union Local 1001 president Lou Phillips to wonder why the city was trying it out again at such a cost. But CDOT spokesman Brian Steele countered the pothole killer was a far cry from the trucks tested out then. Klein reiterated that the trucks would allow CDOT to catch up on pothole repair and not lead to a loss in manpower.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@chicagoist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Chuck Sudo in News on August 12, 2011 9:19 AM

Comments [rss]

Nadine Freemer Bonner

Here's a better video. I think they only grabbed this one because it was short.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Navin_Johnson

Have to say I expected to see something much more impressive on that video than what I saw.

BlueFairlane

I predict the climate is different enough between here and DC that this doesn't work. We have much more frozen precipitation, which will quickly eat through whatever seal this stuff is shooting into the potholes.

That said, I've never thought the four-or-five-man crews worked all that well, either. This is kind of a dream climate for potholes, so this might work well enough to serve as a quick patch until spring.

Either way, if leasing these things does cost $50K/month, it would have made more sense to test them out in February than August.

sat3911

DC may be worse for potholes. We are colder but that means less days above freezing and less freeze/thaw cycles. They basically go through a cycle every day through the winter. Their winter is slightly shorter though.

August is good to try because if it fails no big deal. in January, we can't afford to lose one guy's labor filling holes. Plus if I was the lease agency, $50k in August turns into $100k in January unless you sign up for a 5yr deal.

BlueFairlane

I'm judging more by where I used to live, which is the approximate latitude of DC. The shorter winter where I grew up has a radical effect on what the ground does, as the ground stays much warmer there. Here, the long, hard winter of constant subfreezing temperatures means that the ground itself stays much colder for a much longer time. Frozen precipitation falls, is melted by salt, seeps into the subfreezing ground, and freezes again. The daily freeze-thaw cycle of air temperature where I grew up, though, means that the ground itself never gets as cold as it does here. Precipitation that falls is less likely to be frozen, and the ground stays warm enough to keep it from freezing as it seeps into concrete and below the surface. Also, they use a lot less salt, which makes its own contribution to local potholes.

Your point on the potential increase in leasing cost in winter is a good one, though.

Renita Marjan

It often seemed to me that the fine people of NW Kentucky didn't HAVE any road salt. Or shovels. Or ice scrapers. I witnessed a neighbor trying to de-ice their windshield with cardboard.