Posted on: Friday, December 17, 2004

EDITORIAL
Help! our potholes are full of potholes

Outgoing Mayor Jeremy Harris has consistently held that running a city entails so much more than fixing sewers and potholes.

That's nice, but can someone please fix the potholes?

In spite of a rash of emergency road repair that followed heavy rains earlier this year, county roads and state highways are as bumpy as ever.

Why, in some areas there are potholes within potholes within potholes.

You have to wonder if we're using inferior asphalt. Or is it normal for streets to fall apart after each bout of heavy rain?

City Facility Maintenance Director Larry Leopardi lists several challenges, including bowl-shaped depressions caused by a collapse in layers below; peel-offs, which occur when surface asphalt detaches from the layer below; and alligator cracks caused by spongy subgrade or unstable base material.

And, it seems, the common fix has been to slap asphalt over the cracks rather than address deeper structural problems because that would mean spending money and disrupting traffic.

State Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa notes that potholes are more likely to pop up in areas with drainage problems.

So where does that leave us?

Well, the city has set aside $40 million in this year's budget for road resurfacing.

Meanwhile, the state DOT is considering hiring a private company to help with maintenance and quick-fix repairs.

Everyone agrees that the long-term solution is major road resurfacing.

So let's hold Mayor-elect Mufi Hannemann to his campaign promise to fix Honolulu's infrastructural problems, which we assume includes potholes.

And the city and state must coordinate their roadwork.

This era of makeshift patchwork must end.