By Adam Swift
The statistics show it has been a bad year for potholes in Boston so far, thanks to heavier than average snow and freeze and thaw cycles this winter.
But the city’s public works department is addressing the potholes at as high a rate as it has in past springs, according to Nick Gove, Boston’s Chief of Streets.
Gove appeared before the city council’s city services committee, chaired by Councilor Ed Flynn, on Friday, May 8.
Gove, along with Superintendent of Street Operations Danny Nee and public works Chief Engineer Norman Park, provided an overview of the city’s pothole repair operation and the conditions that have led to more pothole calls than usual this spring.
In addition to the nuts and bolts of pothole repair, Gove also had some good news on the financial side of the issue.
“During this budget process, are you confident that you have enough funding in the FY27 budget … for pothole repairs?” asked Flynn.
Gove said he believed there is.
“I would say not just pothole repairs, but I think we have sufficient funding to support a really strong pavement program next year,” said Gove.
The chief of streets said that pothole repair is a critical city service and something his department spends a lot of time on.
“We understand that potholes are a very frustrating perennial issue in Boston and other cold climate cities,” said Gove. “Public works has adopted and implemented standard operating procedures to address this roadway defect.”
The primary cause of potholes is water infiltration, with rain or snow melt seeping through cracks in the asphalt, saturating the soil and softening the aggregate base beneath the roadway.
“During freeze/thaw cycles this water under the road freezes and expands, creates a gap under the immediate roadway surface, and when that ice melts the void that is left beneath collapses under traffic flow,” said Gove. “Proper drainage and stormwater infrastructure is a key factor in helping manage potholes. If water can’t drain away from the roadway, it can pool at low spots, around manhole castings and curb cuts and that contributes to that freeze/thaw cycle problem.”
Aging infrastructure such as old pavement, roads that have been compromised by utility repairs, and roads that have been compromised by poor base compaction are more susceptible to potholes than roads that are in good condition, Gove added.
The past winter saw significant snowfall as well as a long duration of sub-freezing temperatures that led to more freeze/thaw cycles than in the past five years.
“These factors all contributed to a particularly challenging pothole season this spring,” said Gove. “But while this spring’s 311 pothole requests did increase sharply in March, like every spring, our concentrated effort and response helped to reduce the volume of incoming requests. This eventually results in lower and more stable service requests outside of the spring pothole season.”
Statistics showed that over the past five years, the most requests for pothole repairs came in from East Boston with over 4,000. During the same period in Charlestown, there were just under 1,000 requests for pothole repairs.
“While repairing potholes is a critical basic city service, it is only one component of our larger roadway maintenance program,” said Gove. “It is why we have invested heavily in roadway maintenance over the last several years. We resurfaced over 50 miles of roadway surface last year, and we’re planning on doing another 45 this year.”
The public works engineers continually assess and grade the condition of pavement on every street citywide and work with the utility companies to make sure they have done any necessary repairs and upgrades before the city goes in to resurface a road, according to Gove.
Every morning, Gove said public works crews pick up asphalt bituminous concrete as the department organizes 311 requests that come in by neighborhood.
“We assign them to the respective public works district yards,” said Gove. “Crews prioritize the most efficient ways to complete the work. But also, they are not just doing the reported cases; if they get a case on the street and they show up and there are a half dozen other potholes around … they are addressing those potholes as well.”
Since 2021, pothole repair closures have matched the demand coming in across all districts, he added.
“Our average resolution time is 18 hours, which we think is pretty impressive,” said Gove. “Over two-thirds of all cases are completed within a 24-hour period. I think this demonstrates that we have put a lot of resources into addressing this issue.”
Councilor John Fitzgerald asked if there were any new technologies or innovations coming down the road that could help lower the number of potholes in the city and make road repaving easier.
“I think first and foremost, because of the age of the city, we have utilities that are almost a century old, and in some cases, even older,” said Gove. “The utilities are putting a big investment in upgrading that infrastructure, so over time, getting that infrastructure it needs to be. So in a perfect world, we would construct a road in concrete with perfect drainage but that unfortunately isn’t realistic here.
“Every time, and particularly now because we are investing heavily in ramps; we are, as we are doing even roadway resurfacing, not even full reconstruction, these opportunities when we are doing ramps gives us extra ability to address (defects and puddling) we are able to address some of that.”