Like many drivers, Saad Tekiout has seen enough potholes in Montreal — but he’s now doing something about it. The Montreal resident has taken it upon himself to roll up his sleeves and fill potholes around the city, tired of waiting for them to be filled by city crews. And he’s doing it for free. “I can do it. So why not?” he told CJAD 800 Radio in an interview on Tuesday. With bags of asphalt in the back of his truck, he finds craters on the road that he sees or are sent to him from members of the public and patches them up with a colleague. He’s even got some orange cones to warn drivers when he’s working. Tekiout, the co-owner of a landscaping company based in Brossard, on Montreal’s South Shore, said he has been filling on average three or four potholes per day over the last month. He shared some of his handiwork on his Instagram page. One of his videos posted just on Saturday has nearly 50,000 views and more than 2,000 comments, many of them heaping praise on him. “Not all heroes wear capes!” one commenter wrote. Several others gave him suggested streets for his next job. But there’s at least one person who’s not so thrilled: Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada. Even though she has admitted the pothole situation in Montreal is “catastrophic,” she is urging him to stand down. “Thank you for taking the initiative—truly. We appreciate what you’re doing, but it’s not up to you (or your team) to have to patch the potholes yourselves,” the mayor commented on his Instagram page. “We understand the frustration, especially given the state of the streets inherited from the previous administration. On our end, our teams are working around the clock to speed up repairs throughout the city.” She suggested he call 311 to report a pothole instead. Tekiout is not fazed by the mayor’s warning and insists he will keep doing his work pro bono because he says he’s part of the solution. “My plan is to make the roads of Montreal clean and without potholes,” he said. “I just want to make the roads great. So this is my optimal objective.” Liability issues? Lawyer Éric Oliver commends Tekiout’s intentions, but says there might be some liability issues to watch out for. “The problem is, normally, it’s the employees of the city who have training in order to stop traffic, to do appropriate signals, divert traffic, position their truck and their equipment in an adequate way,” Oliver told CJAD 800 Radio. “What could happen to him is somebody stops him from the city, either a policeman or an inspector gives him a warning, and if he ignores the warning, or refuses to follow the instruction, then [he could] get a fine.” The transition from winter to spring this year has been particularly bad for Montreal roads, with the CAA saying roadside assistance calls for blown tires in the city jumped by nearly 50 per cent in January and February, significantly higher than the provincial rate (28 per cent). Officials also reported 3,824 pothole-related complaints between Jan. 1 to 27 this year, which is almost five times the number recorded over the same period last year (796 complaints). Last month, the City of Montreal announced a series of measures to fix the road situation, including $6 million to improve long-term pothole repairs across the island. Part of the funding will be used to purchase two new automated machines, though they are only set to be put in service next year.
