Daily BrewSomeone has a permanent pothole solution? Make that man Mayor of Canada
At this time of year, people gather in workplaces and at social gatherings across the country and share the oft-repeated joke that there are two Canadian seasons: winter and pothole.
Those people then leave the safety of those gatherings, get into their cars and begin an uncomfortable and bumpy drive home, before their vehicles inevitably tip bumper-first into a chasm the size of Main Street.
In short, spring potholes are bad. So bad that, should someone actually come up with a solution, they would immediately be named President of Canada. Or at least Mayor of Winnipeg. That is, at least, the thinking of one would-be Manitoban mayoral candidate.
The Winnipeg Free Press reported on Friday that Mike Vogiatzakis organized to have the creators of an inventive new pothole solution come to town and demonstrate its healing powers.
"This stuff really works," Vogiatzakis told the newspaper. "It will save the City of Winnipeg millions of dollars."
The solution isn't futuristic, so set aside visions of titanium highways and flying cars.
It is basically a change in the asphalt recipe used to fill the holes. Instead of using a mix that doesn't stand up to Canada's cold winters, the new solution uses premium asphalt cement, special additives and crumbled rubber from recycled tires.
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The company, Pellet Patch, claims the formula stands up to the cold, is environmentally friendly and can be applied at any time of the year, including the dead of winter, rather than waiting until thaw to apply heaps of regular asphalt to devastated roadways.
The mix is currently the subject of a pilot project by the Genesee County Road Commission in Flint, Michigan. The commission report from last year said that the Pellet Patch mix reduced the cost of pot holes by up to 11 per cent annually, mostly by negating the need to repeatedly fix the same areas.
[ Related: Ice coverage, snow pack means spring ending not in sight for tale of two winters ]
Yahoo Canada's Science Writer Scott Sutherland explained recently why tough winters created tougher potholes:
These can form at any time of year, of course, just from simple wear and tear on the roads. However, winter is especially good at producing them, typically in one of two ways. The first is if water seeping down into the asphalt freezes suddenly, it can tear open cracks in the pavement as it expands to form ice. The other way is if the water gets down under the pavement. As it ice forms there, the expansion can heave up the asphalt, while at the same time push down the ground underneath the road. When the ice melts, the asphalt collapses into the cavity left behind. In either case, once the crack or the collapse forms, repeated tires driving over the hole will make it bigger and bigger until it's patched.
Winnipeg doesn't hold a monopoly on car-crunching potholes. Drivers in St. John's have complained about their prevalence this year, as have taxi drivers in Charlottetown, city officials in Saskatoon and editorialists in Edmonton.
But the Canadian Automobile Association says that Winnipeg suffered through its worst-ever year for potholes and even called on the city government to establish a plan of action.
Vogiatzakis isn’t in government, but he seems to have a plan of action. And it’s one that, just maybe, drivers across the country would be interested in hearing about.
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