UPDATE: The City’s 311 email service reports these potholes have been repaired as of May 25, 2016.
Don’t let Porky’s grim smile fool you: In this pothole photo, Porky is literally drowning in water flooding a pothole at Vanderbilt and Hillside. In fact, check out the photo at the end of this post: It’s not possible to cross the intersection without bottoming out in one of the multiple potholes in this crumbling intersection.
There’s no question how this happens: Rain, wear and tear eventually erode even the best-built streets. But when a street becomes this bad, and it’s literally not possible to traverse it without falling into a crevasse, how come no one notices?
Surely there are city employees who live in the neighborhood and drive past this problem every day. And certainly the garbage and recycling guys must crawl by at least a couple of times a month. And any of us can contact the City’s 311 line (online or by telephone) and report a problem as obvious as this. (You can email it to Porky, too.)
Porky heard Mayor Mike Rawlings talk about the growing problem with dangerous and untethered dogs in South Dallas the other day at a Greater East Dallas Chamber meeting. Rawlings mentioned that when he first ran for office, his came up with the GrowSouth Dallas initiative because it was important to him to make all parts of our city better, to share the wealth throughout Dallas. How then, Porky wondered, after six years of what the mayor describes as laser-like focus on a GrowSouth Dallas initiative did everyone at the city miss the fact that packs of killer dogs running loose in the neighborhoods might be bad for business, not to mention the residents?
I guess Porky took on a little too much water in this pothole and needs to dry out and shake it off.
As always, we’ve reported this pothole to the City’s 311 online portal; the report number is 16-00228137, 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.
