Cities Step up Efficiency

Maintenance programs get a boost from patching machine.

When it comes to street maintenance, the old fashioned method of taking a truck full of hot mix and a shovel out to patch a pothole seems to be losing popularity. From the truck-size pothole patching units to trailers and boxes that fit existing equipment, crews find that efficient maintenance programs keep the complaint line form ringing off the wall.

Besides keeping mix hot and workers safe, dumping old pothole patching methods also increases the efficiency of the maintenance crews for the cities to be mentioned here. Each has its own pavement maintenance program, but all incorporate comments from the motoring public. To keep those customers from constantly ringing the phone, crews have to be quick about their work.

In the City of Savage, Minn., the Street Preservation Program focuses on a set 6 or 7 miles (9.7 or 11.3km) of city streets each year, according to Frank Gaillard, assistant public works director for the city. He explains that the maintenance work on those miles includes milling, overlays, pothole patching, and curb and gutter repairs, among others. One of the city's other programs involves a twice-yearly street-sweeping program. "Especially in the early spring," says Gaillard. "When you've got all salt-sand on the road, our street foreman goes behind the sweepers and makes notes of all the potholes in the city and develops an early list." Gaillard points out two benefits of this program. "The streets are clean right off the bat, and we can get them repaired before the phones start ringing."

Gaillard explains that crews used to perform pothole patching with the truck bed full of mix and a man with a shovel. About three years ago, the city purchased an electric asphalt-paving unit from Process Heating Co. Inc., Seattle. Now the crews can confine the mix in the heated box of the Patch King and can deploy the material via an augering system in the bottom of the unit.

Maintenance crews in the City of West Allis also use on of these units, but have a different maintenance program set up for finding the potholes to be repaired. Gordy Paprocki, with the City of West Allis, explains that the maintenance programs in his area incorporate official and public inspectors. "We do have a regular maintenance program where a couple of asphalt patch units are out on the street throughout the year, taking care of those issues," says Paprocki. The city also has street department supervisors who are in charger of watching out for potholes and other maintenance items. "Also, the public is encouraged to call the public works yard if they spot some nasty potholes that need to be taken care of."

The City of Louisville also encourages the public to call in to a pothole hotline when they encounter a problem. "As the calls or complaints are received about potholes, they are filtered through our system and the streets and roads division of the public works department," says Chester Denny, equipment procurement analyst for the City of Louisville. "They (public works department) assign the work."

Denny explains that there is a crew assigned to each of the automatic wards (districts) in the City of Louisville, and each crew has its own Patch King unit. "We use one truck in each ward, and its responsibility is to fix the potholes in that automatic council or district."

Repairing potholes leaves a safer, smoother surface for the motoring public, but crews have to practice safety when making repairs. Proper work zone signage and cones make a world of difference in safety when a motorists approach a pothole patching operation. But workers can be at risk from more than just traffic. Hot asphalt loaded into the back of the truck can come tumbling down when a worker scoops out a shovelfull. As Donny Murillo, a driver for King County, Washington State, points out, using a box or unit to contain the hot mix is a safe practice. He operates a Patch King unit equipped with an augering system for deploying mix. "It's V-shaped in design, and it just augers the mix out the back onto a chute," says Murillo. "It's a really safe machine."

Gaillard explains that in the City of Savage, workers manufactured their own kind of shoveling tray off the back end of their unit. "It came with a chute," says Gaillard. "We built ourselves a little material shoveling tray off the back where the guys can just place the material in the hole more accurately and in the proper quantity."

Gaillard explains that the chute functions as more than just a safety measure for his crews. "We use the chute if we're going to do some asphalt curbing," he says. "Then the material will just roll down and make a nice little windrow of asphalt that we can dress off and have our curb." Keeping things moving quickly and safely is a priority for these cities. With the old method of pothole patching losing popularity, the use of new heat-retaining, safe equipment is catching on.