Harsh Winter Brings Potholes to New York City

The barrage of snowstorms this winter has peppered potholes all over the region, derailing drivers, challenging road crews and spurring a boom in business for auto-repair shops.

New York City officials have filled about 80,000 potholes so far this winter—the most by this date in four years.

In New Jersey, the state’s transportation department filled more than 25,000 road cavities in January, up from about 12,000 one year ago.

Travel group AAA New York said it responded to about 13,000 calls for flat tires in January, up about 30% from one year ago. On some parts of Long Island, AAA officials say, complaints have doubled.

“This is just the ravages of Mother Nature,” said Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for the AAA New York. “This is a pothole season that we haven’t seen the likes of in a couple decades or more.”

For drivers, the fractured pavement has shredded tires, damaged rims and jolted car suspensions. Among the most bone-rattling ruts, drivers say, are “crater-sized” potholes along the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx and large holes on FDR Drive.

James Molluso, 26 years old, said he saw several potholes while driving on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn last week.

“People were stopping short. People were swerving. It was like a battlefield on the highway,” he said. “There were cars on the side of the road with flat tires.”

Officials say all the rutted roads have been caused by a relentless winter that has dumped more than 40 inches of snow in New York City. With the season’s multiple storms, precipitation has seeped repeatedly into the pavement, causing it to expand and contract—and ultimately crack—with each freezing and thawing.

And battling the snow, road-repair experts say, makes potholes worse: Salt adds more freeze-and-thaw cycles and plows scrape the pavement, deepening cracks or adding new ones. Heavy traffic—particularly driving at fast speeds—also damages the roads.

“There is no rest for the weary,” said Galileo Orlando, deputy commissioner for highways at New York City Department of Transportation. “The repeated effects take more of a toll than one big storm.”

Cab driver Yahia Nassar said he busted his tires three times on New York’s streets in one week, ultimately putting his car on the bed of a tow truck.

Pritpal Singh drove into a pothole in the East Village and broke the front right shock absorber of his SUV cab. He had to pay $125 to fix it.

“The passengers get mad. I say ‘I’m sorry I have a flat,'” Mr. Nassar said.

Auto-shop owners say fixing such damages can run drivers $300 or more. Typical pothole-related repairs include replacement of tires, rims and suspension components.

At Cybert Tire & Car Care on Manhattan’s West Side, at least 15 customers are coming in a day with bent rims and blown tires, said John Everett, the company’s president.

Kevin Thomas, 63, the owner of K’s Auto Repair in Mineola, N.Y., said his shop is getting “five times the amount of business” related to potholes that it gets in a typical winter. “The biggest problem we’re having is getting the product,” he said. “If the rim or the wheel has to be replaced, or the tire has to be replaced, a lot of stuff is out of stock or has to be back-ordered.”

Authorities say they are trying to respond as quickly as possible to this brutal winter. Joe Dee, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Transportation Department, said 500 workers are deployed to fight potholes, among other things, and that “major safety hazards” get a response within two to three hours.

“Workers are filling potholes when they’re not spreading salt or plowing snow,” he said.

New York City officials say workers have toiled for 12 hours at times and often worked on weekends for pothole “blitzes.” Last weekend, city workers filled more than 7,100 potholes.

Each city crew includes three to nine employees, depending on the borough, officials said. More than 50 crews are often deployed on a single day.

On a recent afternoon, a crew drove down West 132nd Street in Harlem, filling several deep holes.

Workers drive a heated asphalt trailer—known in the business as a “hot box”—which keeps up to three tons of asphalt at 300 degrees.

On less congested streets, the truck parks in the street while it works. On busier thoroughfares, another crew drives behind the workers, blocking them from traffic.

“You need protection to stop people at 45 miles an hour from coming into you,” Mr. Orlando said.

First, the crew in Harlem used a broom to scrape out one hole, about 9 inches deep, cleaning it of debris. Then, several workers poured layers of solid asphalt rock and hot mixture into the hole, covering the hole.

Then they sealed the hole with hot asphalt and finished the work by driving a 50-pound weighted roller over the pothole to compact the material.

Within a few minutes, the workers were off to another pothole.