‘Freeze-thaw cycles’ challenging for City of Ottawa crews to mend potholes
Posted Feb 21, 2023 05:00:00 PM.
Ottawa weather this winter season has been anything but predictable, but the warmer-than-usual weather gives City of Ottawa crews a chance to patch up potholes around the capital.
Bryden Denyes, the City of Ottawa's manager of roads and services, tells CityNews, crews are sent out during the day and night to repair potholes, especially when it's warmer as opposed to during the winter.
The material used to repair potholes during winter tends to be temporary compared to summer operations, which also presents another challenge.
“In the winter time, repairing potholes is definitely more challenging just because of the temperature, a lot of times there's water in the potholes,” Denyes said, adding that the warmer temperatures also give crews a chance to clean up any water or debris from the potholes.
But, before fixing potholes, crews have to clear the moisture from snow build-up. During the freeze-thaw cycles, however, Denyes points out that that's when the City sees more potholes pop up on roads.
“What we're seeing now is the conditions where we've had warm days, cold nights, that's we start getting into the process where we see more and more potholes, (during those freeze-thaw cycles) coming out.”
Although winter can be a challenging season to work on potholes, it allows crews to mend potholes, given that there's no active storm event and resources can be deployed, meaning crews can work around 24 hours a day to mend potholes.
