You don’t have to rocket to the moon to see craters. Just drive down any given Winnipeg street and you’ll see plenty. According to the city’s street maintenance manager Michael Cantor, crews have already filled 15,000 potholes this year. “Potholes are really a symptom of a deteriorating pavement,” he told CTV News. City crews are on a blitz to fill as many as possible right now. However, Cantor said some streets, especially ones nearing the end of their operational lifespan, aren’t cooperating. “We have some locations that we visit daily just to keep going and to keep those roads safe.” Clark Palalay, who owns Active Courier, said the eight vehicles in his fleet have spent much of March dodging potholes and incurring damage when they can’t. “Mainly to our axles, a lot of our wheel bearings and just, generally, the drivetrain itself. Potholes are a major factor in regards to those things,” he told CTV News. The repair bay at Penner Auto Body is also filling up fast with cars that did battle with a chasm-like pothole and lost. “Sometimes, we’ll get the vehicle in, thinking we’re just going to be fixing a flat tire, and then we realize there’s more suspension components that are damaged,” explained manager Dan Roller. The city is currently using an asphalt cold mix to patch the potholes laid bare by the spring melt. In May, crews will switch over to the hot asphalt, which offers a longer-lasting repair. In cases where roads are reaching the end of their lifespan, Cantor said full-on road renewal needs to be done to truly fix the problem. He said the city has identified some roads that will get an asphalt overlay during the summer, which should result in fewer potholes the next spring.
