BUFFALO, N.Y. — Potholes, they're an ongoing problem that no one enjoys.
On Tuesday, the Buffalo Common Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the Department of Public Works and 311 Call Center to give a monthly update, including data, on where potholes are reported and where they're being patched up.
"This item is special to my heart because we get a lot of calls in our office at least for potholes all during the year," Council President Darius Pridgen explains. "We have a lot of accusations that one side of town has more potholes than another side of town so I think that data is important."
DPW Commissioner Mike Finn says while he understands community-wide frustration, there have been improvements.
"Just based off of calls into 311 alone, " Finn says, "asking for potholes to be fixed for what I look at as kind of the heat of the pothole season, from the start of November into the end of April, we've seen a decrease compared to definitely five years ago."
Delaware District councilmember Joel Feroleto tells 2 On Your Side the use of consistent data will be the extremely helpful big picture.
"We want to see if there's certain areas of the city that have more potholes, or we want to see if there's some that aren't being repaired as quickly as other areas," Feroleto explains. "But also, we want to look at best practices and see if there's different ways to make improvements."
Finn says, a lot of the progress that has been made, thus far, has to do with capital investments.
"The best fix for potholes is to be able to just resurface and keep them in a state of good repair and prevent potholes from forming in the first place," Finn says. "I think that with all of the legislators and governor, they're seeing and hearing from people that they want to see their roads improve, so they're sending the money. And at our level, we're making sure that it's implemented and those improvements are getting out to the street as soon as possible."
If you need to report a pothole, call 311 or visit the 311 Call & Resolution Center's website.
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