City addresses serious problem
Rock Hill city officials had a chance to do something sensible and affordable that would win the affection of residents citywide. They chose well.
The key word is “potholes.” Those holes in the road – ranging from the mildly annoying divots to the enormous tire-destroying craters – evoke terror, disgust, anger and resentment in all drivers.
What if, City Council members asked themselves, we figured out a way to answer pothole complaints within 24 hours? And they did, voting to boost spending on road paving and maintenance by $300,000 in the 2015-16 road budget, raising the total to $800,000.
Among the items included in the budget were special, $170,000 pothole trucks, entirely self-contained and requiring only a two-man crew. Ordinarily, a single pothole could require up to twice that many crew members and two trucks.
Three- or four-person crews would drive a dump truck hauling an equipment trailer to the scene, and perhaps even use a second truck to block and redirect traffic. Now, a single new truck can haul everything needed to fix a pothole, including the asphalt, compaction equipment, emulsions and an arrow board to divert traffic around the work site.
It also carries two workers who fill the pothole, tamp down the asphalt and leave a smoother road behind.
After city crews had a chance to get familiar with the new trucks earlier this month, the service now is fully under way. The goal, according to city officials, is to fill at least 80 percent of potholes reported to the city within 24 hours. And crews will work not only on city streets but also state-maintained roads that run through Rock Hill.
In the past, jurisdictional disputes prevented the city from addressing problems on state roads. But city officials apparently concluded that drivers don’t much care who is responsible for maintaining a road. A pothole is a pothole, whether it’s a city pothole or a state pothole.
This is an important and welcome step for the city. When people think about deteriorating roads and the need for government – any government – to do something about the problem, they aren’t thinking in the abstract about a potential pothole somewhere else.
They’re thinking about the roads they have to navigate every day, and the holes, cracks and crumbling surfaces they try to avoid but often can’t. And they get angry when they are told by elected officials that those potholes are the responsibility of another branch of government.
Where does the buck ever stop when it comes to roads? Well, in this case, it stops with the city of Rock Hill.
With a rainy winter predicted and the potential for freezing weather, new potholes are sure to crop up all over the city. Finally, a governmental entity has decided to do something serious about those potholes and do it in a reasonable time.
That’s a big deal, and anyone who drives should be grateful.
This story was originally published October 27, 2015 at 6:05 PM with the headline "City addresses serious problem."