Potholes aren’t just a spring thing. The wear and tear of heavy traffic on a paved surface can cause them any time of the year.
In Cochrane, municipal engineering technologist Jared Alcock says if you experience one, you can call the town’s infrastructure services department.
“Or we prefer them to go online to the Cochrane Ontario website,” he says, “and go to the ‘Contact Us’ page and submit a Community Voice complaint. They get out to the operations and we go and fill the pothole.”
While the freeze-thaw cycle of spring creates a lot of potholes, Alcock notes that the wear and tear on streets, especially in high-traffic areas, cause them any time of year.
“Once the pothole’s been created, the bond with pothole patching material is not as strong as asphalt,” he explains. “So once a pothole forms, it’s hard to make them stay permanently, but we just do our best to fill them.”