Ottawa drivers brace for pothole season

Pothole season in Ottawa is just getting started and drivers are already seeing the damage. CTV’s Tyler Fleming reports.

Weeks of harsh winter weather are starting to take a toll on Ottawa’s streets, as melting snow and freeze-thaw cycles carve potholes into roads across the city, and drivers are already paying the price.

For new driver Max Paquette, navigating pothole season has become part of his daily routine.

“I’m starting to get the hang of it and there are a lot, which is not ideal,” he said. “On the highway, I’m seeing a lot, especially towards exits. I tend to try to watch the cars in front of me and if I see them swerving around, I tend to do it, myself.”

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Potholes form when melting snow seeps into cracks in the pavement, freezes, expands and eventually breaks the asphalt apart. While some are only minor bumps, others are deep enough to cause significant damage. Resident Sujatha Kumaraswami says she sees plenty of them on her commute.

“Most are small, but I do see really deep ones,” she said. ”As much as possible, I try to avoid them and — touch wood — I’ve not had an experience where I had to change a tire because of that pothole.”

Others aren’t so lucky. At Kal Tire, zone manager Hammad Akhtar points to a damaged wheel from a recent customer.

“This is where the impact happened and the wheel is bent,” he said. “The air fully evacuated the tire, and it went flat. And in this instance, luckily, the driver was able to pull over safely, put on their spare and come to see us for brand-new wheel and a brand-new tire.”

Akhtar says the cost of repairs can quickly climb into the thousands of dollars, depending on how hard a vehicle hits a pothole.

“Depending on the speed in which you hit the pothole and or the depth of the pothole, it could cause some damage to vehicles’ suspension components, or tires as well. And the damage might not be something immediate,” he said. “If you damage the rim or tire, you would feel that immediately, but suspension could be compromised and then gradually, over time, you’ll notice either your car starting to pull in on one side, or you start hearing some type of rattling or squeaking noise.”

Bryden Denyes, roads manager with The City of Ottawa, says pothole season is only just getting started and crews are handling the worst trouble spots now but will ramp up as more snow clears from streets.

“We don’t have an abundance of potholes yet, but we do have some teams going out fixing emergency repairs,” he said. “Now that we’re seeing the days where we’re getting more sun, we will be transitioning to some pothole repair crews in the near future. Our priority is to get out and hit our main roads and then work down through the residential streets when we are out repairing these potholes.”

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On average, the city patches more than 250,000 potholes per year. But for Paquette, he says caution is always key on the road.

“I don’t need the cost of a tire repair,” he said. “You got to slow down. You got to watch where you’re going.”

The city says pothole patrols and repairs will ramp up starting next week, and residents who spot a dangerous pothole are asked to report it either online through the City of Ottawa or by calling 3-1-1 so crews can be dispatched to fix it.