Plenty of Potholes

[Mottom24]

PA is not really known for its good road conditions. I was rather spoiled by how quickly stuff got fixed or cleaned up in NJ, so when I see a pothole in the middle of the street for well over a month it boggles my mind.

A new pothole appeared just outside my work. this isn't just any ol' pothole. This thing is a sink hole! it is about a foot in diameter and goes about 1-2 ft. deep. We had a pothole in almost the same spot 2 years ago but it got filled up quickly... this thing has been here for almost two weeks and it's only getting bigger.

Finally Penndot (or whoever covers this shit in PA) came by... to put a hazard fence thing on top of it. Just one. It's about 3ft high and 2 ft wide, so if you're in a truck it may not stick out. They also failed to add cones to make a nice merge lane as a warning to people in the lane where the pothole is. So of course I see taxis attempt to get by the block by going to the left of it, when it's quite obvious no car of any size could fit through it.

It lasted a day before several cars plowed through it and completely destroyed the little blockade thing. I went out, like the nice person I am, and picked up the pieces so no one would get a flat tire. But this pothole is only getting bigger and it will only be a matter of time before it's big enough to bottom out a car or a truck with smaller tires.

[TheSHAD0W]

We had a pothole in almost the same spot 2 years ago but it got filled up quickly...

There's your answer. It's a sinkhole. Water is flowing below the street there and washing away the soil under the road. Eventually the asphalt disintegrates. Piping more asphalt in is only a temporary fix because eventually more dirt washes away. The only real fix is to dig the whole area up, fix the leaky culvert or block the underground stream, and put everything back together.

[ArcticChicken]

When we lived on Hazel Ave there was a very large sinkhole in the street. I don't know if it's been permanently fixed yet, but at one point it swallowed half of a garbage truck. The patch they put on it lasted three or four years before the street started sinking in that area again.

[protege]

Our roads suck, mainly because PennDOT cut too many corners when designing them. Well that, and their "maintenance" consists of leaning on shovels and drinking coffee

[Raveni]

Our roads suck, mainly because PennDOT cut too many corners when designing them. Well that, and their "maintenance" consists of leaning on shovels and drinking coffee

Those are the "supervisors". They are waiting for the worker to show up.

I fix potholes in some of the communities that I manage. It really is a one person job, unless you wait for it to be 2-3 feet deep.

[blas]

Around here, they play chicken with motorists while trying to shovel gravel back into the potholes.

As you can imagine, that doesn't work very well.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Ah, yes, the "roads" of Pennsylvania. When I went to Mercersburg, there was a joke that you could always tell when you'd crossed the PA state line (either direction) by how bumpy the ride was.