Street maintenance crews in Lincoln have been hard at work this year, reportedly repairing roughly 23,800 potholes since January.
KLIN News got an update from Thomas Shafer, Assistant Director of Transpiration for Lincoln Transportation and Utilities (LTU), who said 16,000 of those potholes were repaired in February alone.
While the majority of potholes occur in the winter due to freeze/thaw cycles, Shafer said moisture from rainfall (like the Lincoln area has had recently) can also contribute to pothole formation. So while February may have been the peak month for road craters, Shafers team repaired 1,400 in April and another 1,400 so far in the month of May.
Hundred of those pothole repairs were spurred by public requests, Shafer added. As more holes are repaired, street crews are able to accomplish other important tasks related to pothole prevention like crack-sealing.
Shafer said pothole repairs are assisted/partially funded by the city’s “Lincoln on the Move” street improvement project, a quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund street maintenance.
“Through that program, we invest in resurfacing streets to cover up and fill those cracks so we don’t see as many potholes in the future. I took a look at the data from 2015 to 2019, and over those 5-years, we’re averaging about 37,000 potholes repairs annually… and since we’ve started Lincoln on the Move, the average has dropped to 23,000,” Shafer said. “So investments that the community is making are really paying dividends for their ride quality and the health of their vehicles.”