Pothole problem a perpetual pain

After last week’s rains, the number of people on Kauai who are not aware we have a serious pothole problem has dropped to approximately 13, all of whom did not leave their homes during the last seven days.

It is, as they say, an epidemic on both county and state roads and highways. All over the island. It plays no favorite and knows no bounds. Affluent and poor destroy their suspensions on the same potholes.

Basically, there are four categories of pothole: 1) “The Boom,” which is when you hear it and feel it in the steering wheel, but not very much; 2) “The Rock ‘n’ Roll,” where you feel it and the car shakes, possibly tossing you into the oncoming lane; 3) “The Axle Breaker,” which does serious damage to your shocks, springs, wheels or tires; and 4)” The Sinkhole,” which may not be big enough to swallow the entire car, but close.

Potholes get worse when it rains because water seeps into existing holes, cracks in the pavement and contracts or expands, and permeates the surrounding asphalt or concrete until it literally breaks apart. As more and more vehicles run over it, pieces of pavement get tossed out and even fly into the air. If not repaired, potholes do nothing except get worse, annoy drivers or damage vehicles.

Which brings us to Kauai, where there is no pothole shortage.

No pothole repair technique lasts very long, but some do better than others and, unsurprisingly, there is an ongoing technology revolution in fixing them that has produced machines with names like “The Pothole Killer,” a self-contained, self-propelled vehicle that goes for $335,000. It has several competitors. I could not find any Consumer Reports rating of pothole repair vehicles.

There are lesser techniques, like jackhammering the pothole to a rectangular shape, deepening it to get a better bond between the pavement and the repair product, or blowing debris out of the pothole with compressed air and then filling it with higher quality blacktop ingredients.

Those are the approaches we do NOT have on Kauai. For budgetary reasons, our county and state crews use the most primitive pothole repair technique available, known in the pothole industry as “Throw and Roll,” which is sort of what it sounds like. A truck drives up to a pothole, a couple of workers toss a “cold mix” asphalt material (which is very short-lived) into it, compact it by driving the truck back and forth over the repair a couple of times, and then moves on to the next one.

Kauai County has upgraded its throw and roll technology in the last few years and now uses a material that includes organic additives (no GMOs here) whose curing is actually enhanced by wet conditions. It adheres better and lasts longer, but not by much. The material is also expensive, according to county spokesperson Sarah Blane.

“Pothole repair is a temporary method,” Blane said, “but also has the shortest lifetime.”

Blane said pothole repair is done by crews with other responsibilities, like road striping, maintaining unpaved roads and parking lots and keeping culverts and bridges in shape. As a result, the crews typically get around to pothole repair only about once a week — though, Blane said, more often when it rains.

The technology that’s out there includes machines that, essentially, bore out part of the paving around the pothole, dry all the surfaces and then inject a far more durable repair material under high pressure or lower a pre-fabricated patch into place and seal it around the edges. All of these machines can be operated by the driver, who never has to get out of the cab.

But no pothole repair lasts forever, which is why only sealing, resurfacing, reconditioning or rebuilding the road has a prayer of granting long-term pothole relief.

Potholes can be minimized in size and damage if people report them immediately. Blane suggested several options: 1) Call the county Roads Division at 241-4847; 2) Call the mayor’s office at 241-4900; 3) email the mayor’s office at mayor@kauai.gov; or 4) send a message to the county page on Facebook.

If you think the aggrieving pothole is on a state road, call the Kauai office of the state highways division at 241-3032. A key to this is quick response. So if you hit a pothole, don’t just curse, complain to your friends or seethe. Call or email immediately.

There are also problem spots, like where state highways and county roads intersect. Many of these intersections are pothole nightmares and motorists may have had the experience of the state saying the county is responsible for the fix and vice versa, the result of which is nothing gets done. Blane said county crews will often patch the hole even if it’s on state right of way but close to the county road.

The state Department of Transportation, unfortunately, did not respond to a series of questions posed on Friday by The Garden Island.

An approach I’ve always favored, but which is not popular with state or county government, is to lock managers from the respective highway departments in a room and don’t let them out until they figure out how to fix state-county intersection potholes.

Which brings us to the last, and probably most important, point. Last year, the County Council enacted a ½ percent increase in the General Excise Tax, to be used for transportation-related purposes. That tax will begin to produce significant amounts of revenue starting next year, when it may raise as much as $12.5 million. That amount could ultimately rise to $25 million a year. This allowed Mayor Bernard Carvalho to make road repair one of the key elements in his “state of the county” address last week.

He proposed increasing the amount of county money devoted to road repair in the next fiscal year — which overlaps the year when the GET tax increase will start to be collected — from $4.8 million this year to $8 million in 2018-19.

That’s a substantial increase, provided the County Council, whose members drive on the same roads all of us do, doesn’t whack that line in the budget. Note to County Council: Don’t even THINK ABOUT cutting that money. Federal funds supplement what the county can budget, unless the administration in Washington cuts them, which seems likely.

Who knows, all this new revenue might even allow the county to purchase a couple of Pothole Killer machines — or vehicles that do the same thing. I respect the county and state procurement processes, but we need this equipment now. Expensive, but, since potholes are one of the major annoyances in all of our lives, probably worth it. Especially if better pothole repair could keep a road in marginally acceptable condition until the resurfacing budget catches up to it.

Don’t be naïve, however. We have an enormous backlog of road repair and replacement staring us in the face island-wide. The fix won’t be quick and it probably won’t satisfy many. It probably won’t satisfy some at all.

But for now, there are two things you can do. First, you can call or email the appropriate agency immediately after you see a serious pothole. Second, you can call, write or email every member of the County Council or, possibly better yet, engage them in dialogue the next time you run into one at the supermarket.

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Allan Parachini is a Kilauea resident who writes an occasional column for The Garden Island.