Photo by Emily Williams
The thing about potholes is they start out just like the rest of us: First they’re small, and then they grow and grow. Unlike the rest of us, potholes never stop growing. With regular rain, extreme temperature changes and constant traffic beatings, a pothole grows exponentially and forever.
Such is the state of the street at Prospect and Concho. The pothole itself isn’t the deepest Porky has seen, nor is it the most dangerous. But had it been repaired when it first surfaced a few years ago, as opposed to waiting and waiting and waiting for attention, it would have been a cheap 15-minute fix for the city’s professional pothole repair guys.
These days, though, the street is going to require a giant swath of repairs as the pothole has literally destroyed a large chunk of the asphalt. That’s more time and more money, thanks to the City Council’s decision over the past few years not to focus enough money on street repairs.
And today, along with other priorities, the Council has to decide between repairing potholes like this one or paying for its self-induced Convention Center/porn convention lawsuit. Wonder what the Council members will do?
As always, we’ve reported this pothole to the City’s 311 online portal; the report number is 16-00075854, if you want to follow along. The City’s portal promises a response to the initial report in three days, with a service followup five days later.
However, on a recent followup email regarding one of Porky’s earlier potholes, we noted the city is promising “estimated response time” of 14 days and a “completion timeframe” of 90 days, even though the timing language remains the same on the 311 portal.
