Potholes in our roads are not only an inconvenience, but they can be quite costly and dangerous. A recent article on the Philly.com website tells of how a group of North Philadelphia neighbors decided to remedy a long-standing pothole issue by taking the situation into their own hands, literally.
Residents of North Philadelphia’s Mutter Street have been contending with an assortment of potholes since 2012. That same year, the Philadelphia Gas Works had to open-up Mutter Street when it upgraded local gas mains. After completing their construction work, PGW repaved the street, but the repaving work didn’t hold for long.
Within a couple of years of being repaved, Mutter Street began developing large potholes and some pedestrians have even been injured by the holes. Local residents issued complaints to the appropriate city agencies as well as to a city council member, and a state representative, but little was done to address the potholes on their street.
The inconsistent weather patterns that brought big temperature swings to Philadelphia this past winter made the existing potholes even bigger this year. Because the PGW’s responsibility for repairing the street had expired, the city was responsible for fixing the potholes.
By early August 2018, residents of Mutter Street got together and chipped-in money to buy cement, so they could fill-in the potholes themselves. The group of neighbors raised more than $500 and purchased 65 bags of cement for pothole repair. One resident filmed a video of the neighbors filling the potholes and the video has received more than 3,000 Facebook views.
A team of Mutter Street neighbors worked together one day last week to fill more than 10 potholes on the street. Amazingly, three days later, the city Streets Department showed up on Mutter Street to fill several large, crater-like potholes that remained unfilled.
