It may be a familiar feeling when your car dips into one of Edmonton’s illustrious spring potholes, but you may not be so familiar with how City staff patch and repair these beauties. Michael Wayne, District Inspector of Operations/Roadway Maintenance, is responsible for coordinating the pothole-filling requests that come into the office on a daily basis. He inspects each pothole and then creates a report with recommendations. Depending on the location, this might require barricades to block off sections of the road. If so, Michael contacts the Traffic Shop to schedule the set-up. Once scheduled, he contacts the pothole crew, also known as the Bubble Gum Crew. Being part of the Bubble Gum Crew is not an easy task. You have to come prepared to deal with all matters of weather, from deep freezes to heat waves. You need to be capable of doing repetitive tasks without complaint and be constantly on guard against aggressive traffic. “Everything we do is temperature-related. Our window of opportunity to compact the asphalt at this temperature, which is about -5, is very short,” said Michael. “After compaction you want it to be level and you want to seal it so water doesn’t get in there. The worst problem is water migrating into the cracks and wrecking the patched pothole.” The City is committed to fixing the problem with potholes but in the meantime its great to know we have a Bubble Gum Crew that is so skilled!
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:00:00 +0000