City ramping up its ‘never-ending war on potholes’

 Notes

SCENE

Cincinnati City Council’s Climate, City Services & Infrastructure Committee met in Room 300, Council Chambers, City Hall, 801 Plum St., downtown. Committee Chair Meeka Owens called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m. The committee adjourned at 10:27 a.m.

Committee Members

Meeka Owens, chair

Ryan James, vice chair

Mark Jeffreys, council member

Seth Walsh, council member

Also in attendance

Harold Miller, Office of Environment and Sustainability

Jeremy Seebohm, City Law Department

Alandra Brown, Clerk of Council
TIME SPENT

23 minutes: DPS Summer Updates & Improvement Initiatives

02 minutes: Public comment

 AGENDA

Item 1. DPS Summer Updates & Improvement Initiatives

Cincinnati hopes to have a second pothole-patching machine in July to battle the seemingly never-ending war on potholes, the city’s Department of Public Services (DPS) director said. The pothole discussion was part of the DPS summer update presented by department director Mark Riley.

Riley, who brought along new deputy director Ashley Fluellen, said his overall mission is to continue improving the delivery of services. As such, he said one of his goals is to visit all city neighborhood councils to speak with them about DPS services and improvements. So far, Riley said, he’s averaging meetings with two community councils a week.

Other improvements, he said, include:

   * Plans to purchase a walk-behind vacuum to pick up neighborhood litter

   * Expanding the city’s 311 line for residents to report pothole locations or litter on city streets, as well as highways and entrance/exit ramps owned and maintained by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT)

   * Cutting down on the time between missed yard waste and bulk pickups

   * Continuing the DPS neighborhood litter engagement program in partnership with KCB

   * Continuing the department’s proactive response to potholes

What’s the top 311 request? Council Member Meeka Owens asked.

“It’s always going to be potholes,” Riley said.

Yard waste calls have been the No. 2 request because of a two-week delay in the biweekly pickup schedule that began April 20, he said. Crews have been working Saturdays to catch up.

Just as DPS was successful in cutting down the time to take care of potholes from five days to 24- to 48 hours, the department wants to respond more quickly to requests for bulk collection (within five days), and return to collect bulk items if not on the scheduled day of pickup, then the following day.

“We’re making strides to improve our services and our service delivery,” Riley said.

“The goal is to extend the life of our infrastructure,” he said when asked about his department’s preventative maintenance strategy regarding potholes.

“We want to get away from (patching) potholes and start doing general repairs,” he said, “because if we can eliminate those potholes and do permanent patches, in the long run it’s going to help the PCI (Pavement Condition Index) score of our streets, because that’s going to be the key, the PCI score, the Pavement Condition Index. If we can start tackling those (pothole-stricken streets), we can help DOTE (the Cincinnati Department of Transportation and Engineering) with the improvement of some of our roads.”

There are streets not on DOTE’s five-year cycle that DPS can repair temporarily until DOTE can get to them, Riley said. 

DPS wants to do permanent pavement cutouts, which go beyond simply filling a pothole with gravel and leaving it. Riley said a permanent patching job includes applying tar as a seal around the edges of a patch to prevent water infiltration. While not getting into details about cost, Riley told Council Member Ryan James that temporary patching is less expensive but could cost more in the long run.

Riley said the city has one pothole-patching machine that does cold patching – a temporary fix – and hopes to have a second one in July.

The committee filed the report without objection.

PUBLIC COMMENT

Sam, as he was identified, mentioned the National League of Cities’ summer conference. He suggested that if the city sends a delegation, it should meet with the Minneapolis delegation for information about how to handle stormwater runoff.

The meeting adjourned at 10:27 a.m.

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