The city is declaring war on potholes.
So if there is a teeth-rattling crater on your street, it promises to repair the pit in five business days.
All you have to do is call, the city says.
With
pothole season upon us, the city is targeting 400,000 of them – a huge
jump from the average of 190,000 repaired in each of the past four
years. It is also boosting the pothole patrol to 125 from 100 workers.
The total cost for this year is budgeted at $7 million.
Mayor
David Miller joined the pothole patrol at work yesterday in
Scarborough, much to the amusement of the neighbourhood crowd gathered
to hear him.
Homeowner Cora Kraus kept a keen eye on the patch job at the foot of her driveway.
“I am a perfectionist,” she told Miller when he asked if she thought he was doing an acceptable job.
“We have an ambitious plan for 2009,” Miller told the news conference on Ascolda Blvd., near Danforth Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E.
“A lot of work is planned to improve the quality of our roads and our bridges.”
The
rapid response program will save the city money by targeting small
potholes before they grow, explained Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker.
“If we fix a pothole when it is the size of a baseball, it costs about $10 to fix,” he said.
“When it gets to the size of about a basketball, it costs about $20.”
By
the time a pothole is as big as a garbage can lid, the repair cost is
about $50, and “we are paying for that as taxpayers,” he said.
Miller
said the city will spend more than $240 million on transportation work,
in addition to a $90 million investment in Toronto’s roads by the
city’s water and public utilities departments.
That is expected to create 2,000 to 3,000 construction and contractor jobs.
The city’s pothole hotline is 416-599-9090.
