Michigan City Blooming With Potholes (And Not Just With Gaping Craters)

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Tired of gritting your teeth as you snake around potholes to avoid damaging your car? You’re not alone.

Paige Breithart of Hamtramck decided to do something that would at least give motorists a reason to smile while at the same time getting city officials’ attention, WXYZ-TV reports. She and her boyfriend, Josh Gaudette, recently filled dozens of potholes with flowers, and they’re hoping more residents will take up the cause.

The two and a handful of their friends filled a pickup bed with two flats of flowers and bags of soil, then went on a planting spree that Breithart hopes would make a statement with city leaders on the importance of keeping up with the city’s infrastructure needs to encourage growth.

“We wanted to draw attention to the fact that they weren’t being filled, and they have destroyed so many of my friends’ tires, and my own tires,” Breithart told WDIV-TV. “I just thought they would look beautiful for the spring, a little flash of color, sort of a cautionary device not to hit the holes.”

In a few hours time, they had planted about 50 flowers, filling 30 potholes.

“We cruise around, and we have to avoid them, kind of snake the road so we don’t pop our tires,” said Gaudette, who told WXYZ residents of Hamtramck have responded positively to the blooming potholes.

He’s heard everything from “this doesn’t belong here, but I like it” to “random people who say it’s a good point, and we appreciate what you’re doing.”

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Most of the flowers have been run over and destroyed by now, but Breithart would like to see more blooms in their place until the city addresses the pothole issue.

“There are so many in that city, I feel like they should do more,” she told WDIV.

In a statement to WXYZ, Hamtramck Mayor Karen Majewski said she thinks the flowers are “cool”and “a sign of Hamtramck residents’ creativity and community engagement.”

She said the street repair program is under way. Fire routes are the priority right now, but eventually all potholes will be filled, she said.

“But I hope the flower planting will continue around the city,” she said.

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Screenshot via WDIV-TV