Saturday, March 13, 2010

Dark spots in the pavement where potholes are forming and homemade signs providing warnings about frost heaves have become part of the landscape of Shutesbury Road in Amherst this winter.

"It is so badly potholed, it's almost dangerous to drive down," said Elizabeth Garland, who lives on the street and recently brought her concerns about its condition to the town's Department of Public Works.

But what she has learned since speaking with town employees is that her road, at least for the time being, is not going to get much better, because it's among the many roads in Amherst that need substantial work, even though there isn't the money available to do the proper repairs.

"It seems like a system breakdown," Garland said.

Yet despite the problems Garland and her neighbors have encountered, Amherst DPW Superintendent Guilford Mooring and other area road bosses say this winter could have been worse for potholes and taken more of a toll on roads.

"So far, it's been pretty light," Mooring said. "This year has not been as bad as the year before."

--Agree? Disagree? Email us with your pothole locations or tales

Since Dec. 1, Amherst's DPW has received only 26 complaints about potholes.

Mooring, though, said he is concerned about this weekend, with showers and heavy rain in the forecast and the possibility of a freezing and thawing cycle developing that will cause more potholes to pop.

In Northampton, outgoing Highway Department Superintendent Edward Button said pothole season is in full swing. He said he fields about a dozen reports of problematic potholes a day around this time of year, and dispatches a crew to fix them.

So far, Button said, he hasn't noticed more pothole complaints this year than in previous years.

With the ground bare of snow cover, Easthampton DPW Superintendent Joseph Pipczynski said he is optimistic that the worst of this season may already be over.

"I think we're going to be a little better off because we don't have the snow melt going on through March," Pipczynski said.

Pothole fixes

Every community has strategies to attack potholes, with tried-and-true methods used every winter, as well as some experimental solutions.

Easthampton, for instance, is trying a new approach that Pipczynski hopes might be a more permanent fix for potholes. The city has rented what is known as a "pothole patcher" machine for a month, an idea that was brought forward by Highway Superintendent Jim Kicza.

The patcher sprays an emulsion into the pothole, which is then covered with three-eighth-inch crushed stone, creating an emulsified blacktop, Pipczynski said.

The department expects this to hold better than the conventional cold patch, which, while malleable and easily worked into potholes, is slow to cure and doesn't set up, meaning that this type of asphalt often pounds out when vehicles drive over it.

Pipczynski said the city cut the amount spent on cold patching down to $10,000 this winter, but will spend $4,000 renting the patcher machine and another $4,000 for materials associated with it.

"It's a little more expensive, but we think it might last longer," Pipczynski said.

Motorists' expectations

Money for winter road repairs is not an expense that can easily be cut, since residents expect their roads to remain drivable, Pipczynski said.

When asphalt plants open for the season, likely by the middle of April, Easthampton's crews will begin using a hot mix for pothole repair.

Northampton, too, is trying creative ways of solving the annual problem. Button said the department is using a new device since last year to fix potholes. Called a "push box," which is a metal frame attached to a front loader with an adjustable-height blade, the device allows the operator to control the amount and thickness of blacktop being distributed when fixing a pothole. He said employees with the city's DPW built the machine for less than $5,000 after studying one used in Westhampton.

"It's a primitive paving machine," said Button. "It's very old school."

Old school it may be, he said, but it works well because it is flexible enough to use for any size pothole.

"It's an inexpensive, temporary fix," he said. Temporary, in this context, he noted, is five to six years.

Budget busting

Northampton DPW Director Ned Huntley said though the city typically spends about $25,000 on fixing potholes annually, the city busted that budget big-time last year, and likely will again this year.

"Last year was the worst pothole season I've seen in my 9½ years," said Huntley. That year the city spent about $85,000 to fix potholes, and he estimates this year it will be around $75,000. Time and weather conditions, however, will be a factor in what the total ends up being this year.

"I don't know if it's going to be a banner year for potholes," he said. "I know it's going to be difficult this year because of how much our roads have deteriorated."

Mooring said Amherst doesn't have a specific budget for fixing potholes, as the money is incorporated into the materials budget for a variety of maintenance-related items that also includes repainting lines on streets. This budget, though, has seen cuts over time, from $105,000 in fiscal 2002 to $85,000 this year.

During the coldest periods of the winter, Amherst uses a cold mix that it purchases from All Stat Asphalts in Sunderland. Cold patch, though, is susceptible to popping out, so Mooring said the town will begin buying the hot mix as soon as it can.

Call the DPW

The quickest way to get potholes fixed is to call the DPW directly. Pipczynski said when a pothole is spotted, he radios the location to work crews so they can do the repair. In Amherst, a supervisor makes out a list, generates a work sheet and puts them in a logical order for crews to go out and fill.

While frost heaves are also a winter road maintenance problem, many of these have gone away since the arrival of milder weather. Mooring said frost heaves are generally attributed to construction that takes place over time beneath a road, such as the installation of culverts, and are often found where water gets trapped.

Pipczynski said his department is aware of the traditional places for frost heaves in Easthampton, such as Plain Street.

"Frost heaves, if you're not aware of it, can be just as bad as potholes," Pipczynski said.

Rebuilding roads

One cause for the development of potholes is that the underlying conditions of many roads are no longer as good, and money just isn't there to keep fresh pavement on streets.

Huntley said part of the reason for the increase in spending on potholes in Northampton is the $24 million backlog of road-repaving projects that the city hasn't been able to get to. As roads deteriorate, he said, potholes increase.

Northampton spends about $600,000 in state aid for road repair projects that include fixing and sealing cracks and laying down new pavement, but the city should be spending more than $1 million for that work, Huntley said.

In fiscal 2002, Amherst spent $1.67 million for DPW operations, which includes parks, cemeteries, trees and highways. In fiscal 2010, this had only risen to a $1.84 million budget, even as the price of asphalt has gone from $35 to $40 per ton to $95 to $100 per ton.

"The budget has not kept up with the realities," Mooring said.

Prioritizing

To counter this problem, Amherst Town Manager Larry Shaffer is working with Mooring to develop the concept of prioritizing the roads in the worst condition and then putting them into a bond package. "From my perspective, it's something we need to do," Shaffer said.

A $4.5 million bond package is being proposed by Shaffer, who said now is as good a time as any for such an expenditure, with cheap construction costs and low interest rates.

"Our roads don't get better on their own," Shaffer said. "We've got to get more serious about implementing a road reconstruction project throughout town."

Jason Skeels, Amherst's town engineer, said in an email that a portion of Shutesbury Road is scheduled to be repaved in three years using state Chapter 90 money, the state aid related to roads that comes to Massachusetts communities annually. The street, he said, will require considerable investment in stormwater drainage and infrastructure.

If the town were to provide additional funds for paving on top of the $500,000 in state money, more roads could be repaved, the backlog of work would be reduced and fewer potholes would form.

'Shimming'

Pipczynski said one strategy used in Easthampton last fall as preventive maintenance was "shimming," meaning the paving of sections of road with a surface coat to tighten them up.

Those in the road maintenance field cautioned that roads will never be perfect during the times when cold weather grips the region.

"The best way to avoid pothole damage to vehicles is to pay attention when driving, obey speed limits and heed warning signs," Skeels said.