Pothole problems plague Bloomington drivers

Bloomington streets have transformed from a pre-winter smooth-concrete feel to a late-winter obstacle course of perilous pitfalls for many drivers. \nPotholes have been popping out of the asphalt on IU's campus and the surrounding Bloomington streets -- in turn upsetting IU students, town residents and guests. \nCity driver Brenda Rairdon, who lives on the South side, said she is frustrated with the potholes around particular areas of town.\n"Second Street is so bad that I avoid it at all costs," Rairdon said. "I hardly ever go down that road, and if I do, it's because I forgot."\nRairdon said drivers can try to be careful to avoid potholes -- although going slowly is not always effective.\n"If you're crawling you won't do damage," Rairdon said. "You can't slow down that much on a highway when you have a car behind you without causing another accident. Going 10 miles per hour can do damage to your car."\nJunior Colin Page said Bloomington personnel need to do more to repair potholes before the city's roads get worse over time. He cited an increasing number of cars in Bloomington as a reason for the roads deteriorating.\nDirector of Public Works Julio Alonso said the Bloomington Street Department has made repairing the city's thousands of potholes a priority. He said the department has repaired 3,157 potholes since Jan. 1. \n"We attempt to get to all of them as quickly as we can and focus on the places that carry a lot of traffic," Alonso said.\nHe said the current patching mix doesn't mix well with rain and varying temperature. The Street Department must use different asphalt until March because the plant that makes the hot asphalt does not open until then. Until March, Alonso said, the department will use a cold mix, which doesn't bond like hot asphalt. This causes a need to again repair potholes that have already been repaired, Alonso said.\nSophomore Marisa Alexander said though she swerves to miss some obstructions in the road, ultimately potholes are not good for her car.\nPotholes can sometimes be damaging to vehicles, no matter how slow drivers are going. Junior Anthony Bowers said driving over a pothole last summer caused more damage to his car than he would've liked.\n"Last summer, I ran over a giant pothole twice the size of my head and almost as deep," Bowers said. "I ran right through it because I didn't see, it was in the normal tread of the road, and I got a flat."\nGreg Seiter, AAA Hoosier motor club public affairs manager, said the best recommendation for avoiding vehicle damage is to slow down.\n"The best advice I can give is that people need to slow down," Seiter said. "Generally speaking, if you look at any given highway within a city and see people driving too fast, you should slow down. Slowing down will give you more time to see a pothole that you are approaching and hopefully avoid it. Also, if you go slow you're less likely to cause unnecessary damage to car."\nAlonso agrees with Seiter: Slowing down and knowing where problematic areas exist will help to avoid potholes.\n"I think the only thing I could advise folks -- be cautious and pay more attention to road conditions and be aware of certain conditions and be conscious of that." Alonso said. "Slow down where you can, and I guess, try to be more conscious of potholes."\nProblematic potholes can be reported to either the Street Department at 349-3448, or the Public Works at 349-3410.\nAlonso said he thinks Bloomington has done a good job patching the potholes.\n"I think we've been doing a pretty good job, this is a priority (for the) Street Department when we are not out battling snow," Alonso said. "So I think we've done a pretty good job of keeping up with them and taking care of them as possible as we can."\n-- Contact Senior Writer Lindsay Jancek at lmjancek@indiana.edu.