Do you think that potholes (chuckholes, kettles) are merely the product of winter weather? Guess again — heat and rain are just as capable of ruining a road as are ice and snow. Which explains why Honolulu and Los Angeles have particularly bad pothole problems.
I explore the mechanics of pothole creation as well as the conditions that lead to poor pavement maintenance in this article for Pothole.info. My client is building its presence on the web with articles on all things pavement and pothole prevention and repair, and writing on technical subjects for the non-technician audience is something I particularly enjoy. Given this post went up in July, the subject matter is appropriate for anyone who thinks road deterioration occurs only in winter.
My clients at Pothole.info like to track trends in infrastructure (road and bridge building and repair) and transportation, including funding and consumer behavior issues that can affect these things. I stumbled onto an Advertising Age article that discusses lower rates of driving among young people, and turned it into a blog for Pothole.info. In the blog, I report on both the article content and what Ad Age readers said in response (it was a lively exchange).
What does this have to do with potholes? Lower rates of driving today might explode in five to ten years as the economy improves and when 20-somethings evolve from bikes and public transportation (my preferred modes of travel, btw) into homeowner-parents who might live too far from jobs to avoid being in cars. If cities, states and the feds fail to fund road pavement preservation between now and then, there will be many a rutted highway for those Gen Ys to navigate. Better to keep up the maintenance – because every dollar spent fixing a road is seven dollars saved rebuilding it later.
In time for the annual pothole season, my client has launched Pothole.info, a website/blog on all things pavement. It takes a look at the crumbling infrastructure of America’s highways, roads, streets and bridges – why this is happening, how it affects us and what can be done about it.
Since going to work on this as a primary website content writer in 2009, I have become an asphalt geek. And a bit of an advocate – without proper attention to this huge problem, our economy can be greatly affected in macro as well as on the individual level: damages to cars from pothole hits average $400 for every motorist. Add to that slowed traffic and more expensive shipping of all industrial and consumer goods and the costs climb even further.
There are smarter ways to build and repair roads (known as pavement preservation). But it still requires money, an allocation of government dollars to this vital task. To illustrate, consider how a dollar spent on preventive efforts saves $7 in road rebuilding costs. This website is building to become the most complete repository of current news, information and even a little bit of humor on potholes and road preservation.