April 27, 2007
Potholes are Bad, Gravel-Filled Potholes are Worse
Beware, there's a vigilante pothole filler on the loose, and he’s strewing gravel all over D.C. streets. If you bicycle, skateboard, or rollerblade, keep your eyes open and your first aid kit handy.
I was on my bike yesterday, coming up P Street to its intersection with 14th Street NW. There was no cross traffic on 14th Street, but the light was red. No matter, I thought, until I saw a cop parked ahead of me. I didn’t want to get a ticket (D.C. police are now writing tickets to cyclists and pedestrians who don’t follow traffic laws) so I swerved right to make a somewhat legal turn on red. I rode over a pothole.
I’ve ridden over innumerable potholes with the worst effect being a slightly more misshapen wheel, but the pothole I rode over yesterday was filled with loose gravel, and my skinny road tire nearly slid out from under me.
I immediately blamed Fenty. What with his potholes-fixed-in-48-hours aspirations, I figured it was some idiotic attempt at staying true to his word. But it turned out it wasn’t his doing. I called the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), related the incident, and asked if the city filled potholes with loose gravel. "We fill potholes the right way, I was told.
DDOT does not fill potholes with loose gravel because it is dangerous. It is dangerous for bicyclists and even more dangerous for people on skateboards, scooters, or rollerblades, who will fall face first to the pavement if even a single piece of gravel lodges under their wheels. Also, a car driving over loose gravel can launch the little rocks at passersby or other cars.
So who, then, filled the pothole? The man I spoke to at DDOT suggested it might have been a nearby resident or construction crew thinking it to be a good deed. I surveyed the block for suspects, fixing my gaze on a hardware store down the street. The shaggy haired clerk at the checkout counter did not know anything about the gravel, and he said that the store only sold pea gravel, which I know is smooth and was not the gravel in the pothole. We discussed the possibility that it might have been the construction workers who built the condos on the corner, but they finished that months ago and haven’t been back since.
I left without an answer and biked home, noticing two other potholes filled with loose gravel on the way—one farther down P Street and one on R Street between 13th and 14th streets.
If you’re a vigilante pothole filler, please stop. You have good intentions, but next time let DDOT take care of it. You can call them at (202) 727-1000 or file a request online using the Service Request Center.
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Holy shite quit beeyotchin
I saw this crazy truck driving around P and 14th yesterday morning in search of holes to fill.. another photo
I assumed from all of the piping and the entire strange looking getup that it would spray some sort of tar mixture, but I didn't get to see one in action...
I am guessing this is their site: Pot Hole Killers
I distinctly recall seeing Parker Stevenson and Sean Cassidy hash this mystery out on the New Adventures of the Hardy Boys. Turns out the culprit was Keenan Wynn, but don't bother tracking him down because he's dead. Unless....
A more telling question is: why did DDOT ignore complaints about said pothole to the point where residents felt forced to take "direct action?" And to follow-up, will DDOT take any subsequent action to fix this halfassed patched pothole? Or will that too be ignored?
Tune in next week when Frank and Joe Hardy tackle the Mystery of Why People Think $5 for Yeungling at Happy Hour is a Great Deal.
Simple solution:
Grow up, ditch the bike, and drive a car.
I'm glad you didn't get hurt!
(But why were you not considering a stop at the light by instinct? C'mon: set a good example for motorists, as it earns cyclists respect. At most at that intersection, it's 45 seconds out of your life. Set a good example - it's good for all of us who ride a bike as our primary mode of transport.)
As far as renegade pothole fillers are concerned, I think folks are frustrated with the sheer volume of holes on the streets - and the often half-assed job that DDOT does in filling 'em. For example, there was a nagging pothole on 28th Street NW, just north of Q Street. Said hole got deep, and the tar-and-gravel fill that DDOT put in the hole didn't last more than a day with all of the traffic s-l-o-w-l-y rolling over the fill - the result being a deep hole with a big hump of oil-coated gravel immediately adjacent to it.
Only this week did the hole get proper treatment (there was erosion happening under the hole - it has now been fixed and properly closed with cement, which is the most durable paving surface). It took a lot of wrangling to get it to happen, but it's finally to a point where cars and bikes can use the road without playing a game of chicken with southbound traffic.
Boy...What great advice vmistert.
Ok, why stick with the road bike with skinny tires that don't work in the city. A mt bike or hybrid is much better suited for urban warfare. What you sacrifice in efficiency you gain in safety. Smoother ride, higher energy absorption factors, more upright position to respond to changing conditions and better traction. Sure that retro 10speed is cool…but it is not designed for urban transport.
@ vmistert
Bicycles aren't children's toys. They are a proper mode of transportation that far outnumber cars around the world.
But if you want to sit in your car in rush hour, working on your type 2 diabetes as you get fatter, while I cruise past on my bike, go right ahead my friend.
Thank you #7! Not blaming the victim, but skinny bike tires on DC streets seems very hazardous. Not a good idea for "real world" conditions, just like drivers of cars with big blingy rims find out when they hit a pothole hard, wear out their wheels bearings and suspension components, or a few inches of snow falls.
Boys, boys.
Maybe vmistert WANTS to die slowly of diabetes in his precious car, and maybe you want to get creamed by an irate commuter who can't understand hand signals.
Can't the both of you smug bastarts just die already, please?
Typical DC bike rider, breaking the traffic laws. Guess they got what they deserved this time.
it's not a ten speed, it's a track or messenger single speed. maybe a fixed gear, who knows? switch from that to a hybrid? please. the hipsters will throw empty pabst cans at you.
i can't even find my road bike for want of all the empty PBR cans in my apartment.
Mmmmmmmmm...PBR.
Good, but no Miller High Life.
Tell us, oh wise and all-knowing vmistert, why should someone who lives in the city and can get 95% of the places they need to go on a bike go to the trouble and expense of owning and parking a car around here?
Renting a car for occassional trips is far less expensive than owning one that ends up sitting there unused for days at a time. It would seem that "growing up" would involve the most financially (and environmentally) responsible option.
I would feel a bit sorry for you if you were at least obeying traffic laws...but since you weren't, I can't! Oh well.
I love it when someone makes a negative comment about bike riders which leads them to get their panties all up in a bunch. I realize that all of that pedaling must really boost your testosterone levels, but you all need to relax a little, really. I don't know, go have a drink, or take the bus for a change, maybe?
A brief summary of what we have learned here:
Ah, it's comments sections like these that warm my heart with regards to my fellow Washingtonians and their capacity for a little simple fucking decency.
Whether or not he was obeying traffic laws is completely superfluous to the issue at hand and had zero impact on why you would have felt sorry for him otherwise. If his original intent was to make that right turn, he'd have run across the gravel-filled pothole all the same.
Guy gets impaled by a pipe that flies through his windshield after falling off the back of a truck. The guy happened to be talking on his cellphone at the time, which is a violation of traffic laws. Does he not rate your sympathy either, since he was committing an unrelated infraction at the time of the accident?
No sympathy, had he been following the law and using a headset or speaker phone, perhaps both hands on the wheel (or free) would have helped with his potential reaction. But we will never know, because while breaking the law, he died. oh well.
although, there was this felon who robbed a bank and upon fleeing was rocked by a bus, i kinda felt for him, he was this close.
I've seen the funky looking truck thing in action. It has a big hose-type contraption that hangs overhead and it pipes in some concoction to fill the hole up. Maybe the stuff they're using is a quickfix rather than a more permanent solution like asphalt, but on Rock Creek/Beach Drive there were some HUGE holes that my Echo could fall into, so I was happy to see they'd been filled. Hell, they could have filled 'em with used Safeway plastic bags and I would have been happy.
Can we please look at the bigger issue here? Matt- you need some hobbies brother. You saw gravel on the road and then spent the next three hours calling the DDOT, looking for "suspects," searching for more gravel, taking pictures of said gravel and then writing this post.
Yikes.
RecSpecs: Matt has a hobby! It's called writing for DCist.
I'm with RecSpecs... lol...
> I would feel a bit sorry for you if you were at
> least obeying traffic laws...but since you
> weren't, I can't! Oh well.
Hear hear. By the way, does filling a pothole with gravel complicate its eventual proper repair?
just a question for all those who are so happy to point out that matt was not following the letter of the law. what about all the goddamn drivers in this town who don't follow the letter of the law? there are many many more automobile drivers, and i can't tell you how many of them don't respect other modes of transportation (bikers, buses, walkers). how about a campaign to get the drivers to shape up. oh wait, the city has been trying to do that for years!
i bike most places around town. on my way into work this morning i had to watch as two hipsters tore past me on their bikes and weaved in between cars on their way to run a few red lights and disobey as many traffic laws as possible. i wanted to punch them both. it's idiot bikers who wantonly break laws that ruin it for those of us who don't....
adubyailkinson has linked to the picture of what is responsible for the loose gravel. Contractors for DC driving around trucks that spray gravel and tar...
yes... spray.
While it's effortless, only takes one guy to drive the truck around and fill the holes. It is far from perfect. The results depend on the outside temperature, the "mix" settings for the trucks, and if it gets ran over by the truck/other cars. The holes can be fill ok, or you end up with a puddle of soft tar with gravel in it, and of course what you've discovered, a pit full of loose fine gravel. Usually it's because they didn't spray enough tar that causes the loose gravel.
I watched one of these trucks perform it's magic on Livingston St NW near Western Ave. And you can see various examples of it's output, from the mushy tar pit, to the pit of loose gravel.