OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Potholes are front of mind for Omaha drivers.
"On, I-80, I went over one and I thought I was going to lose a tire," said Meghan Durr.
Another joked they heard an echo in one.
And Roland Treu, owner of True Travel, says the stretch of 72nd Street outside his travel agency — just north of Dodge Street — has seemed especially bad this year.
"Sometimes they're hard to miss, especially when you've got a car right next to you," he said.
72nd Street North of Dodge is one stretch that's been a problem this year, says Austin Rowser, an Omaha street engineer and assistant director of public works for the city. But he says it's a different story south of the intersection.
Rowser says they've done work south of 72nd and Dodge through a bond issue passed by Omaha voters in 2020. But that hasn't happened yet on the north side of the intersection.
"That's an area that's scheduled for panel repair this year," he said. "If we hadn't done the work that we've done over the last three years, that section to the south would look the same as the one to the north. And so, you can just take that example, that stretch of roadway and see the benefit in the value (of the bond projects)."
Completed and active projects are listed here.
Repaving roads, rather than simply patching holes, is the long-term solution needed, he says, and the bond issue that passed in 2020 is a 20-year program.
Water freezing and breaking the pavement isn't the only problem, according to Rowser.
"Weather kind of prevents us from fixing them the best that we can because we just we just don't have access to the best materials or the best conditions to patch them," Rowser said. "We're always looking at how to do things better. Obviously, there's no magic solution to that, or somebody would have found it by now."
This year, he says potholes patched in the bad pothole season of 2019 are breaking where the roads haven't been repaved.
There have been 615 potholes in February, which is about average he says.
"A lot of the bigger, major street segments are seeing a problem out there," he said. "So, I know it's a little more visible, a little more heightened because it's on some higher traffic roadways."
Rowser says they're nearly fully staffed.
"The mayor's done an excellent job of keeping us staffed and allowing us to pay people a starting wage that's competitive," he said.
But, the street engineer said, "I would always like to have a contractor for peak seasons that can come in and help, too, and just kind of shave some of that peak off. Unfortunately, we haven't had that contract in a few years. I think it would be beneficial to the city, but we're not in that position currently."
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