Every year when spring rolls around, the snow melts away and
potholes pop up in the road, creating potential dangers to passing
vehicles.

“It is pothole season,” Patricia Shinaberger, McKean County
maintenance manager for the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation, said Sunday. “We’re prepared to begin our attack.
As soon as weather permits, we’re going to be out there working on
them. We actually wanted to start this week, but we can’t being
that there’s snow. Things haven’t gone quite as we planned.”

Gary Alcock Sr., head of public works in Bradford, said potholes
are down this year compared to last year because “we haven’t had
the freeze and thaw” as in past years.

He said potholes are scattered all over this year with none
really in one area, adding last year they’d have to patch potholes
daily; whereas, so far this year they have patched potholes on a
weekly basis. He also said there hasn’t been a lot of rain yet to
wash away the pothole patches.

Shinaberger said if potholes are in the same places every year,
they have to get in there and deal with drainage problems. But she
said they shouldn’t be in the same place every year unless they’re
in an area that PennDOT is holding off on repairing until they can
do a major construction job.

Shinaberger said areas where potholes are really bad include the
Bradford Bypass of U.S. Route 219, which PennDOT is set to begin
construction on today weather permitting, and just south of Lewis
Run on Route 219. There are potholes all winter long there,
according to Shinaberger.

“There are areas where they are bad,” Shinaberger said. “They’re
not the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Shinaberger said most potholes are isolated, but last year they
did have a whole road, Route 770, “blow up” on them. She said so
far PennDOT hasn’t had one particular road just give out on
them.

Alcock said a lot of times potholes come up in different places
each year, but there aren’t too many of them in new
resurfacing.

“It’s the older roads that usually give you the trouble, where
there’s an ice problem, water problem or low spot where water can
stay there a while to freeze and unthaw,” Alcock said.

Alcock said cracks in the roads develop from heaving of the
road. In the winter, water gets into the cracks and freezes. The
water expands and breaks up the road surface, with passing vehicles
then breaking away pieces of the pavement to form a pothole.

Shinaberger said underlying drainage problems can also create
potholes, but all potholes are “water-based” from water getting
into the road surface.

“Water and ice are the culprit,” she said.

Shinaberger said real heavy loads can also crack the pavement,
and Alcock said vehicles can also “chew away” at existing cracks in
the road without the expansion of water to create potholes.

These potholes can do a lot of front-end damage to vehicles that
have to drive over them.

An employee in the service department of Ed Shults Edmond
Chevrolet Toyota on East Main Street said Friday that potholes can
cause damage to a vehicle’s front suspension, oil springs and
shocks and can cause motor alignment problems, which can cause tire
wear. He also said loose rocks in the roads can damage windshields
and paint jobs, adding they get a lot of vehicles with windshield
chips and chips in the paint in the shop.

A representative at Fairway Ford Lincoln Mercury on East Main
Street said Friday potholes can do all kinds of damage to ball
joints, tire rods and wheel barrels and can cause general wear and
tear on cars from excess pounding.

“Just think if you’re a runner and had to run on those roads,”
he said.

He also said potholes with sharp edges can actually blow a
tire.

A representative from Monro Muffler Brake and Service on East
Main Street also said Friday that potholes can pop tires, bend
wheels, brake springs, weaken shocks and struts, take front end
alignments out and cause other front end damage such as damage to
tie rod ends, ball joints and generally mess up the ride of the
vehicle.

He also said they usually get a lot of vehicles with shock
damage, popped tires and bent wheels in the spring and summer
time.

“It’s a big hindrance to have potholes on the road,” he
said.

Alcock said city street crews use a pothole cold patch to fix
the problem in the winter. He said they heat up the patch with a
blowtorch to make it pliable in the cold weather, adding they also
heat the holes up that they’re putting the patch in, which “seems
to make it hold a little better.”

“The cold patch is just a temporary fix until we get the hot
stuff,” Alcock said. “It’s not permanent.”

Shinaberger said PennDOT follows a procedure written out in
their handbook for a permanent repair that involves cutting a
straight edge and getting it dried out.

Last September on Hilton Street in Bradford, representatives of
American Refining Group and area municipalities met to see a
demonstration of how a locally-made ARG product called Pennz
Suppress could work as a pothole patch.

Bradford City Councilman Dan Costello, who is employed by ARG,
said Pennz Suppress was purchased about two years ago and is a dust
suppressant and soil stabilizer.

Alcock explained last September that Pennz Suppress is a
solution that is mixed with millings – shavings taken from the
surface of the pavement when the DPW mills the road six-feet back
from the edge to make sure the water drains from it properly.

“We didn’t have real good success with it,” Alcock said Sunday.
“They kind of just dropped it after that one day. That was kind of
the end of it. We experimented with it. It just didn’t seem to make
the road any better than if we didn’t put anything on it. I don’t
think that material was made for that. It was made for dust
control.”