I had to stop at a friend's house on Saturday to pick something up. I saw a large pothole in front of their place, took a few minutes to snap a photo and report it to the city, and... it just got filled in.

Reported on Saturday, fixed on Monday.

I don't know how to convince more people to do this.

https://rasterweb.net/raster/2024/02/20/fixing-potholes/

#mke #milwaukee

Fixing Potholes

Let's see how quickly a pothole gets filled in...

RasterWeb!

I care more about the state of the streets than most car-brained people.

(To be fair, my friend is actually a bike rider, but plenty of other people live on and use that street with their cars.)

@rasterweb You may live in a city that's especially responsive to these kind of service requests. I don' think my city would fix a pothole even if 20 people called to complain

@MLE_online Oh yeah! Milwaukee is really good at it, which is more frustrating because I wish more people would report them.

I think the city has to deal with it in a certain amount of time as well. There was some story about automating the reporting with cameras on garbage trucks but someone pointed out it might put the city at risk if too many reports came in and they could not keep up.

@MLE_online I should make a little zine about how to fix potholes in Milwaukee and give them out to everyone.
@rasterweb You should! I bet you could even get some bookstores, coffee shops, and libraries to put them out somewhere
@rasterweb @MLE_online Yes you should! Such a great idea.

@rasterweb
That's a great response time.
I don't think our local councils can afford to do that so efficiently here.

Also, the road I live on is unadopted so no one is responsible, though technically all the house owners here would be jointly responsible.
No such luck given the houses are nearly all rentals. The landlords won't care.
So for the last 30 years, as one of three owner occupiers, I have been the one fixing the potholes and repairing/replacing the stone sets.

I am getting a bit tired of it, to be honest.

@Maker_of_Things Ugh, if I had to do repairs to my own street myself... I probably would, but I'd also tire of it.

I do live in a large city, pay the taxes to do so, but also enjoy the services.

So many people here constantly complain about the potholes but don't do anything about it.

A year or two ago in the spring I went for a walk and reported about 25 of them just in my neighborhood. They got fixed within a week or so.

@rasterweb
Yes, I imagine there are a lot of people who will moan and complain, but not to the authorities who can do something about it.

Small scale fly tipping is the other issue here. If it is on the council's green space we can report it, and it will be gone in a day or two. However, if it is on our road, again it comes down to me loading up the trailer and taking it to the tip. Fortunately it doesn't happen often.

More frequent is fallen branches in the road from storms. Most I can move by hand, but occasionally the chainsaw comes out.

@rasterweb @Maker_of_Things There are fun instances of folks putting a tile mosaic into a local pothole. A lot of work, and it doesn't last forever, but also makes a kind of statement.

@Maker_of_Things Last year when I was biking to and from work there was this one pothole I kept avoiding, then finally after a week of swerving around it I took a photo, reported it, and it got fixed a few days later.

I just need to shake people until they do the same thing!

@rasterweb
I agree. People need to realise that it is fairly easy to do that.
Even if the authority can't fix it quickly, or at all, the report is still logged and recorded as an issue people are concerned about, both for future budgets, and for insurance claims.

@Maker_of_Things @rasterweb

To be fair, I've reported quite a few things locally - potholes, damaged road signs and traffic lights etc, and some things get fixed quite quickly, or at least, made safe quickly and fixed later.

@suearcher
I am still weary of that repaired 'hole' that is still sinking into the road.

@rasterweb

@Maker_of_Things @rasterweb

Yeah, that one is a pain. I guess they only did a basic patch repair.

@Maker_of_Things @rasterweb We have "pothole" season here were roving bands of municipal workers spend the day visiting all the local potholes so adding one to the list is no big deal. (Upstate New York)
@rasterweb that's fortunate, across the pond we have some the longest lived potholes, some so old they have nicknames!
Samples;
Oh fuck that was close!
AW, shit I forgot that was there!
Oh Bollocks, that tyre's fucked!
And of course the
"Slow down! There's too many!

@rasterweb
I stopped by my town's highway department to show them where the asphalt has washed away in front of our driveway due to sidewalk work.

I went in person, because (a) they never answer the phone, and (b) a picture was worth a thousand words.

It's on the list for when the asphalt plant restarts (currently closed for the winter).

@RealGene Yikes! So glad our city has the app, web site, and phone number. I’d hate to have to go in person. πŸ˜…
@rasterweb
It was great. I've been there before on a similar mission, and it's like stepping into the Mos Eisley cantina, except much, much filthier.
@RealGene Worse that a wretched hive of scum and villainy!?