We all know potholes are a big problem in New Orleans. But when it takes an average of 204 days to process a complaint about a pothole, something needs to be done to speed up the process. And that's what a new report, being released today, from Inspector General Edward Michel looks to do.
"I believe the citizens will see, in the future, a much more expedited process. We will obviously be looking at it and we will revisit it later to make sure that they are improving in the efficiency and the effectiveness of pothole completion."
The report: Inspection of NOLA-311 Pothole Repairs from the Inspector General's Office examined top to bottom how potholes are handled by the City from initial complaint through actual repair of the pothole and the roadway.
Actually, the impetus for the report, it could be said started earlier:
"In 2016 the city published a pavement analysis, which showed about 65% of the city's streets were in poor to very poor condition," Michel says. "We decided to conduct an audit to inspect how the Department of Public Works surrounding the general repair of potholes and to determine if the potholes were repaired in a manner that was timely, efficient and transparent."
"We found that it took a significant amount of time to repair these potholes," Michel explains. "And what we also found was that there were several thousand calls reported about potholes each year."
Quoting from the report's first finding: The DPW took an extensive amount of time to "resolve" pothole service requests, with an average repair time of 204 days. Furthermore, some requests remained pending for more than two years.
Once the information was culled, the IG's office prepared a set of recommendations to improve service: The DPW should adopt formal policies and performance measures to fill potholes in a reasonable time, based on best practices and realistic attainability. Furthermore, the DPW should work to clear the backlog of pothole service requests that are pending resolution.
To this end, the report quotes a sobering statistic from the Triple-A about potholes across America: Drivers spend approximately $3 billion on car repairs due to pothole damage each year and that the average of the repair costs amounts to roughly $300.
The good news is New Orleans has taken steps (like buying new road re-surfacing equipment) to improve roadway conditions and taken on multiple capital projects and inter-departmental collaboration to get these potholes repaired and roadways made more passable.
To read the complete report click here.
