Potholes plague Lethbridge city streets

As the snow and ice melts away from Lethbridge streets, pesky little potholes have been popping up all over the city.

Drivers thinking the holes seemed worse than last year, would be right.

“Its certainly above average,” said James Nicholls with the City of Lethbridge. “These things happen every so often and we are prepared to deal with them.”

READ MORE: Snowfall warning issued for much of Alberta

Some of the potholes are bigger and more problematic than others.

The city usually can tackle big ones year-round, but the ice never left some areas of the city until this week. Now, crews are working hard to patch the problem areas.

“We’re using a mixture of different products,” Nicholls said. “We have bagged asphalt that we use to alleviate problems if they are substantial ones that are going to cause damage to vehicles right away, and then we also have hot mix asphalt that we cook on site that we use to fix some of them if we can wait a little longer.”

READ MORE: Over 16,000 truckloads of snow have been removed from Lethbridge streets this winter

Certain areas of the city do have more potholes than others, due to the amount of moisture in the area.

“When you get warm weather, then cold weather, warm weather, then cold weather, you tend to have small cracks develop into large cracks and any minor deficiencies in the roadway, it just gets into those cracks and break them out,” added Nicholls.

If there is a bad pothole that needs immediate attention, drivers are asked to call the city and let them know. The city says the more details about where the pothole is, the better.