The proliferation of potholes is more than ever an issue in the metropolis. More than 2,300 holes in the roadway were recorded in January and February, a high since 2019. The City, however, claims to have already resumed their patching due to favorable weather conditions.
Some 2,328 reports of potholes were made to 311 between 1er January and February 28, show data from the municipal administration made public on Friday.
In 2023, this figure was just 1412 during the same period. The year before, it was 1,776. And in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, an all-time low of 507 potholes was reported. In 2020, there were 1,788 recorded, while in 2019, there were 3,669.
Montreal reminds on this subject that the number of reports does not necessarily reflect the number of holes on the road, since several reports may have been made for the same pothole.
However, everything is not dark. According to administrative spokesperson Hugo Bourgouin, 75.3% of the arterial network “was judged to be very good, good or average during the last auscultation” in 2020, compared to 61.5% two years previously.
If we exclude the “average”, approximately 54% of arteries are in good or very good condition. This is a marked increase compared to 2015, when barely 21% of arteries obtained such a rating. However, as reported The Press Previously, improvements have been slower on local streets. The proportion of these streets in poor or very poor condition increased from 30% to 37% between 2010 and 2022.
According to water manager Maja Vodanovic, the situation is attributable to the fact that local budgets have not increased since the mergers, which is clearly insufficient with today’s costs. “Just in Lachine, we have 3.7 million to build our streets, maintain our buildings and our parks. It’s like impossible. It has never been revised and it is clearly insufficient,” she said.
841 million by 2033
“We are sparing no effort to prevent potholes in the long term,” nevertheless assures Mr. Bourgouin, who recalls that the City has planned to invest 841 million in leveling-surfacing programs, under its ten-year dismantling program. fixed assets (PDI) 2024-2033 filed in November.
Since last Monday, very favorable weather conditions, without snow, but especially above the freezing point, have allowed the resumption of mechanized sealing using Python 5000 devices. Operations are currently taking place “day and night” , assures Hugo Bourgouin.
He specifies that all this “is in addition to the manual clogging done by the borough teams”. The City reiterates its invitation to citizens to report potholes by calling 311 or using the Montréal Citizen Service application. This allows in particular the taking of photos, geolocation and personalized follow-up with the person who made the report.
At CAA-Quebec, spokesperson David Marcille deplores that potholes are increasingly costing motorists. “Since 2020, related repair costs have increased by around 20 to 35% depending on what we calculate. The bill is therefore really passed on to motorists,” he says.
The heart of the problem, adds Mr. Marcille, is that Quebec “is caught in a vicious circle, with infrastructure that is 40 years old on average.” “We are catching up after years of neglect, so we are investing astronomical sums in repairs, but it is preventative maintenance that should be done. »
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- 20 billion
- CAA-Quebec estimates that 20 billion would have to be spent “all at once” to resolve the road maintenance problem in Quebec. In the next decade, investments in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan (PQI) are of the order of 31.5 billion in the road network.