What to Know
- Philly has repaired 292,943 potholes from January 2013 to the end of 2018, according to a new report from City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart.
- The City plans to pave more than 95 miles of city streets this spring, summer and fall.
- Philly crews are still trying to catch up to the mandate for smoothing out some of the hardest hit city streets.
Philadelphia is doing a better job at repaving pothole-riddled streets but still has work to do to get to its goal of 131 miles of road repaved each year.
City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart released her report looking at the last six years of repaving and pothole repairs Tuesday.
“The state of Philadelphia’s streets is one of the most frequent concerns I hear from residents,” the Democrat said. “My office is releasing this data in the hopes of advancing the public discussion about improving the condition of Philadelphia’s roads. I am committed to transparency around city services and how taxpayer money is spent.”
A big focus of the data collected from the Philadelphia Streets Department from January 2013 to the end of 2018 was potholes repairs. Center City, Northeast Philly and East Germantown (each with more than 12,700 repairs) led the neighborhoods with the most repairs from 2013 to 2018. Center City also has twice as many repair requests as any other neighborhood.
With just 648 repairs, Bridesburg came in last for pothole repairs.
The report even broke down the repairs by street with Ogontz Avenue leading the way with 4,866 road defects repaired. Lincoln Drive (4,726 repairs) and Washington Avenue (3,176 repairs) rounded out the Top 3.
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In total, Philly repaired 292,943 potholes after getting 107,749 complaints, the report said.
The controller’s office also released its Street Defect Repair Rating, which rates streets on a 0 to 100 scale based on repairs made compared to the length of the street.
Rhynhart’s report comes about a month after Mayor Jim Kenney revealed his $200-million plan to add paving crews.
“I know that repaving and potholes are major concerns for our residents, I hear about it everywhere I go,” Kenney said last month while showing off the city's repaving efforts.
The paving map, which is posted online, allows residents to track the city’s repaving projects. Paving takes three to five weeks so that the roadway can be milled, adjustments can be made, the surface can be paved and the road can be striped. Residents must move cars at points during the paving process.
The Streets Department must pave around 131 miles of road annually to keep up with the national standard of roads being in a “state of good repair,” the city said.
The City has failed to reach that national goal for years, the mayor’s office said. A total of 77 miles of roads were paved in 2018. The goal is to pave more than 95 miles this year.
Kenney’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget calls for the gradual implementation of a third paving crew and an additional 30 employees at a capital investment of about $200 million that would further expand the paving program to get it close to the national standard. The city has already increased paving by 238 percent over the past five fiscal years, Kenney’s office said.
Rhynhart says the city is on pace for the Streets Department to reach the 131-mile paving goal by Fiscal Year 2023.
(Click here for more of the most-repaired areas and for maps detailing the city’s paving efforts.)
