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January 3, 2009

Potholes cause headaches for motorists, road crews

BY BRIAN L. HUCHEL The Commercial-News Sat Jan 03, 2009, 09:50 PM CST

Alternating between freezing winter conditions one day and out-of-season temperatures near 50 degrees the next has done little good for the rural roads throughout Vermilion County and elsewhere.

And those road conditions aren’t helping the vehicles owned by residents, such as Will Kiger of Sidell.

A frequent user of County Road 600E between Sidell and Fairmount, Kiger said potholes forming in the road are causing damage to his and his wife’s vehicles.

“It’s a losing battle. You can’t keep up with it,” said Kiger, who listed worn tire belts and broken windshields from flying rocks as two damages the couple’s vehicles have received.

Keeping up with state and rural roads with potholes can be a massive job, according to Jerry Cearlock, operations engineer for Illinois Department of Transportation District 5.

“All we’ve been doing is patching potholes,” he said “We’ll be in that mode until we get caught up on the weather changes.”

He said facilities throughout the district have been handling pavement breakups this winter. Crews were on County Road 600E earlier this week.

For the IDOT, as well as the county’s highway department and township road commissioners, the pothole problem has formed earlier than usual this year.

Cearlock said, in the past, roads have developed potholes more into the latter part of winter, usually around February. But a December hard freeze followed by last week’s warming cycle has caused roads to see damages much earlier.

The problem comes as water settles into cracks within the roadway. As it freezes, it begins to expand. Alternate between freezing and thawing over the course of a month with constant use and the result is a jarring and sometimes unexpected bump for motorists.

Kiger said he has measured potholes in pavement of County Road 600E, adding he’s found one a few inches deep and big enough to fit a tire into.

“I can’t imagine how many people that this impacts their lives,” he said, adding the damage is tough to avoid.

Not all the roads are suffering the same damage as a result of winter’s up and downs so far. Vermilion County Highway engineer Doug Staske said his crews have not had to address the problem on too many of the county’s more than 150 miles of roads.

He added the oil and chip surfaces on some roads as well as poor draining on others has led to extra work for township commissioners.

For state workers, the job isn’t just a matter of heading down the road and filling holes as you go. Cearlock said there’s a method to the work to make sure the bigger problems are taken care of first.

“We try to hit the worst spots that could be a potential safety issue,” he said. “Then we go back through and pick up the others or others that crop up as winter goes along.”

Cearlock said state transportation workers use a coal mix that is shoveled into the potholes and tamped down.

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