City enlists the ‘pothole killer’ in fight to fix damaged streets
Pothole Brigade, you’ll soon have help! The Chicago Sun Times posted this article this morning:
Chicago will enlist mechanical reinforcements in the never-ending war on potholes: a machine known as the “pothole killer” that can fill a hole in 60 seconds with a much smaller crew.
Currently, the city fixes potholes using 20 three- or four-person crews during winter months and four or five such crews in the summer. The crews arrive at a pothole, use shovels to fill the hole with patching material from a dump truck, then tamp it down by hand. Since Jan. 1, CDOT crews have filled 450,000 potholes, 20,000 more than in all of 2010.
Klein, the former transportation commissioner in Washington, D.C., said the pothole killer worked like a charm for him in the nation’s capital and he’s hoping it will do the same in Chicago.
If it works, the city will lease even more of the trucks, freeing city employees for street-paving duties.
