Rutted ice and potholes are turning suburban streets along the Front Range into teeth-rattling, backcountry torture trials for sedate sedans and overmatched pickups.
The results are frequent trips to neighborhood garages and more time and expense for cities trying to do emergency patch up on local streets before the next Arctic attack, expected later this week.
“We are normally in good shape this time of year, but with this cycle of freezing and thawing, we are seeing damage that is really going to take its toll on roads,” said Ray Porter, street-operations manager for the city of Westminster.
Cars also are taking a beating, and auto repair shops are reporting an upswing in bodywork since two major snowstorms moved through the state.
“It’s nothing but land mines for cars out there now,” said Phil Higdon, manager of Boulder’s HonAccurate, a car repair shop.
A dozen or more cars have been serviced at Higdon’s shop since the first storm hit late last month, with road-related damage ranging from broken fenders to vehicles out of alignment. Each repair can range from $80 to $100.
“Those add up,” Higdon said. “They can take a toll.”
The problem is heavy snows produce water that soaks into asphalt, which then freezes and expands, said Andrew Barth, spokesman for the Boulder public works department.
Once the air warms, the ice melts and water evaporates, leaving behind an empty crater. “Sometimes you get big potholes occurring after the big storms,” Barth said.
Crews in Boulder this week were doing emergency pothole repairs on eastbound Arapahoe Avenue and northbound Foothills Parkway and on 28th Avenue and Iris Avenue.
The work needed to get done early this week before the next storm hit and because of the limited availability of hot-mix asphalt patching material.
That is usually produced during the spring and summer when most road-repair jobs are completed, Barth said.
State crews were also working this week to patch potholes on major arterials including Interstate 270 and Vasquez Boulevard and on Interstate 70 near 32nd Avenue, said Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Stacey Stegman.
The volume of potholes being reported is not overwhelming, Stegman said. “But it’s definitely early for us to see this type of road damage,” she said.
In Denver, city crews have filled more than 600 holes in the past few days. The city does routine patrols for potholes on the busiest streets, but the city also relies on calls from residents, said public works spokeswoman Ann Williams.
About 135 of the 600 filled potholes were repaired in response to calls. By comparison, Williams said, the city filled more than 120,000 potholes last year.
“And this year, with the weather, we are probably going to surpass that,” she said. That’s no surprise to Doug Kirchdorfer at Downing Street Garage. The overdose of winter weather this year has inundated his shop with banged-up cars.
“Tons of tire punctures and bent wheels and damaged suspensions – lots of that stuff,” Kirchdorfer said. “But it is hard for us to tell. Are they running through potholes and getting the damage, or are they slip-sliding around and hitting a curb?”
Kirchdorfer said the thawing ice can be just as bad as broken asphalt.
“If you are driving down an ice-jammed street and there is a hole in the ice at the end of the street … that’s like a pothole,” he said.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
