The City of Allentown’s Pothole Hotline is up and running for the 2016 season. Motorists who encounter a pothole on streets maintained by the city are urged to call the city’s Pothole Hotline at 610-437-8775 or send an email by accessing the city website.
The Streets Department recording asks callers to give the exact location of the pothole along with their name and telephone number in case the city needs to reach them to ascertain a more precise location. Callers can reach the Pothole Hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
An icon on the www.allentownpa.gov homepage links directly to the pothole page in the Public Works Department. Visitors to the pothole page can send an email directly to the Streets Department via a drop down box.
The city is picking-up its first load of hot patch for the season today at H&K Materials in Coopersburg.
A Street Department crew fills potholes using a PB Patcher unit that is fully self-contained and can be installed on any single axle dump truck. The unit has the capability of keeping hot mix material workable all day. The city has a goal of repairing potholes on high traffic volume roads within 24 hours and lower volume streets in 24-to-48 hours. If a complaint is received of a very large pothole, a supervisor is sent to the scene in a reasonable period of time to determine if immediate action is warranted.
According to Streets Superintendent Mark Shahda pothole patching is a top priority. “We have at least one crew assigned to pothole repairs daily. The city filled nearly 14,200 potholes in 2015 at a cost of about $112,000 in equipment, materials and labor.”
Potholes result from the freeze-thaw cycle. Water seeps beneath the pavement through cracks caused by the wear and tear of vehicle travel. As the temperatures fall below freezing at night, the water becomes ice and expands below the pavement, forcing the pavement to rise. As the weight of traffic continues to batter this raised section – and the temperatures once again rise above freezing – a shallow divot occurs beneath the surface breaking the pavement and forming a pothole.
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