Stop Driving Around That Pothole: Edmonds Wants to Fix It for You

Is there a nasty pothole that you swerve to avoid every time you approach it?

The City of Edmonds wants to know where it is. Instead of getting mad, or waiting for another driver to report it, why don’t you report it yourself? You might be surprised at how quickly it is fixed and your drive can return to all sunshine and happiness.

Edmonds’ Street Maintenance crews perform pothole repairs throughout the year. If you are aware of a pothole in need of repair, you should contact Street Maintenance Manager Tod Moles by email or by phone at 425-771-0235 during normal working hours. It’s that easy.

You don’t have to send a photo. The department can find it with an address, street name and travel direction.

“The web has already demonstrated better efficiencies in our response, and I think it also has given the residents a better opportunity to provide feedback that typically didn’t happen before,” said Moles. “(But) we still have some tweaking to do as far as who receives the ‘complaint’ and how it is channeled through to the appropriate departments.”

But the Internet had certainly speeded things up. “In the past, a complaint would be called into the front desk and a report taken,” said Moles. “A paper copy would be created and placed in the street department box for action. That report may set there for hours and, depending on the time it was taken, it may not have been addressed for a day. We have a crew member that is in charge of signs and signals that can usually break away from what he is doing to address the pothole. We are receiving compliments on our responses and I think it is the ability to send an electronic-form ‘thank you.’ “

Moles said his department’s response is to place “perma patch cold mix” in the pothole. The material is designed to be a permanent patch, but he adds that the reality is that this mixture eventually fails if it is in a high traffic or wet environment.  “If the pothole is one that repeatedly fails, we put it on a pave list that gets taken care of by our paving crew and hot asphalt,” he said.

A recent e-mail to the department showed how quickly potholes can be replaced. This one was on 80^th Street SW between 216 Street SW and 218^th St. SW. It’s on a busy stretch of road, especially during the school years as it’s near . The pothole, which technically was the result of a failed utility patch, was initially given a temporary cold-patch fix. The next day, it was repaired in full.

There’s no reason why you should have to make swerving to avoid a pothole a part of your daily regimen.