Pothole Repair in Pennsylvania

IN T R O D U C T IO N In the C om m onw ealth of Pennsylvania, the m anual repa ir of potholes involves an annual expend itu re exceeding $25 m illion, which is second only to snow rem oval in the m a in tenance budget. P rior to 1980, it was com m on practice for rep a ir crews to practice a “throw an d go” policy, w ith pa tch m ateria l p laced in the potholes w ithout rem oving debris or loose m ateria l. Frequently , there was no com paction at all or only m in im al com paction , often w ith the back of a shovel or truck tire. Such repairs were typically short-lived. A crisis situation gradually developed because the crews were unab le to keep pace w ith the nu m b er of potholes th a t developed each spring. M any of the potholes were filled several tim es each season, which inconvenienced the public and caused poor public relations. A value engineering study (1) indicates th a t the cost of pothole repa ir th a t is repaired with a “throw and go” policy is approxim ately $307 .68 /ton . A properly repaired pothole, because it needs to be repaired only once, costs approxim ately $65 .2 2 /to n . This situation caused the Pennsylvania D epartm ent of T ra n sp o rta ­ tion to review its m ethods of pothole repa ir. A com prehensive evalua­ tion of cu rren t (1980) practice, m aterials, equ ipm en t, and m anpow er u tilization was undertaken . As a result of this evaluation , a new specification for cold stockpile patch in g m ateria l was developed, a d o ­ it-righ t policy including a revised set of p rocedures was adop ted , and an intensive tra in in g effort was u n dertaken . In this paper, pothole p a tc h ­ ing is discussed as it occurs on state highways rang ing from low-volume roads ( < 400 A D T) to m ajo r expressways. It is assum ed th a t the p a tc h ­ ing occurs from la ter w inter to spring as a result of the spring thaw . U tility patch in g and large-scale m echanized pa tch ing are not included. This p ap er describes the results of studies conducted by T h e P en n ­