An SDOT crew at work (Image: City of Seattle)
The potholes of Capitol Hill are a lasting reminder of the cold and icy start to 2022 as the city continues work to fill the hundreds of streets damaged in the snap that included Seattle’s coldest day in 23 years.
The Seattle Department of Transportation says reports of potholes soared this month creating a backlog as crews work to catch up and get back closer to the city’s expected 72-hour turnaround.
“It takes us longer than usual to respond to all the potholes after heavy rain and snow because our crews are dealing with storm-related clean-up activities,” SDOT said about the work.
With Seattle now in a mostly clear and cool January dry snap, the delay these days is mostly about the numbers. There are a lot of potholes left to fill. You can use the Find It, Fix It app or this online form to report the ‘holes.
(Image: SDOT)
Bellevue repaves its streets more often than Seattle — and also has thousands fewer miles to take care of (Image: CHS)
The Seattle Times compared the situation in Seattle with what it reports are smoother road conditions in Bellevue. The big difference? Our Eastside neighbor spends more on repaving its streets than Seattle does. Seattle, we’d point out, also has about four times as many miles of streets to maintain.
SDOT says it does, indeed, end up having to refill the same potholes over and over again. “Repairs that we make during the winter don’t always last because the rain keeps coming, and asphalt can’t bind to the surrounding pavement,” the pothole announcement reads. “So, many of the potholes we fill today may need to be repaired again over the next few months until the weather becomes warmer.”
In 2021, SDOT filled 15,000 potholes.
Have a favorite Capitol Hill pothole you want to check the status of? Take a look at SDOT’s Potholes Repair Status Map.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍
Seattle should spend the same equivalent as Bellevue. We deserve the same roads! More people equals more money. City needs to focus on Capital Hill toads. I think we may have worst roads in City. Please!
I agree Capitol Hill easily has some of the worst roads in town. It’s just another example of the failure of our city government. Roads all over the city are disintegrating, bridges unfunded and poorly maintained. The city is awash in cash, but they waste it. Taxes have skyrocketed, they have a special registration fee, property values skyrocked over the last 30 years and roads have not been this bad since the 1920s.
Just don’t bother asking your city council representative if you are unfortunate to live in district 3. Lucky for you if you live in district 5, with Deborah Juarez as your council member…or lucky for you if you live in district 5 with Alex Pedersen as your council member… unlucky for those of us who live in district 3 with Kshama Sawant as our council member. She just doesn’t care.
You need to put potholes into the context of what matters to the massive number of people who fund Kshama Sawant, they don’t live or drive in district 3.
Potholes? Trash? The environment? Clogged storm drains? Abandoned vehicles that leak oil?
Those people don’t care and have zero investment in this community.
Lol, THIS is the year of the pothole…where you been? My street’s been potholed for a decade–and I’m right in the middle of it, between Pine and Olive Way.
“Seattle, we’d point out, also has about four times as many miles of streets [as Bellevue] to maintain.” Seattle also has five times the population of Bellevue, which means that if we were using the same percentage of tax revenue, we should have even better roads than they do. Road maintenance is a basic function of city government, and it’s not just for cars. Bicyclists can be seriously injured by riding into a pothole.
I agree that we need a more comprehensive repaving of our streets, especially on Capitol Hill. But, in the meantime, it would help if more people reported potholes. There is currently a backlog on the response time, for obvious reasons, but they will get filled reasonably soon.
Either use the “Find it – Fix it” app on your phone, or go to this link on your PC: Select Service Request – Citizen Web Portal (motorolasolutions.com) There is a specific section for reporting potholes on page 2 of that link. You will need the address where the pothole(s) is located.
Thanks for the link.
Isn’t Bellevue pavement more asphalt in proportion than Seattle pavement, many of whose streets use large-clast concrete slabs prevalent in the PNW?
Seattle also has more steep streets that don’t conform to terrain