CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland will begin to fill potholes on residential streets this week.
Crews from the public works department will take their caravan of vehicles to every residential street in the city to fill troublesome spots.
Crews have already been filling potholes along heavily used streets since the winter, thanks to some special machinery the city has purchased.
The city can reuse asphalt from the previous year's milling work to patch potholes in the cold, when asphalt plants are closed.
Depending on the freeze-thaw cycle, this patch will last from winter into spring, which is a little longer than a coal patch.
This year, crews used 500 tons of this recycled asphalt. This method saved the City of Cleveland a significant amount of money.
"The best part is the cost savings," Kevin Davis, a district leader with the Department of Public Works, said. "It's almost $50,000 in cost comparison between a coal patch and this recycle mix. That's essentially a new car every winter that we could buy a resident if we had cash funds."
Crews will continue pothole patching until about May 31.
Then, crews will transition over into road resurfacing projects.
The city will invest $20 million in road resurfacing this year.
The public works department is awaiting city council members to provide a list of streets in their wards that need repair.
Once that is finalized, the department will know how far those dollars will stretch.
In the meantime, residents are asked to call 311 and report any potholes. The 311 system is how crews know where to go to fill potholes.
