How San Diego could fix its potholes faster (2024)

SAN DIEGO—

San Diego could fix more potholes more quickly if crews used mapping software to reduce the distances they must drive between jobs, and if the city bought one more pothole truck to avoid having crews sit idle, a new audit says.

City crews should also record pothole repairs more carefully and comprehensively to evaluate efficiency, find possible improvements and set reasonable goals for the nine individual crews doing repairs each day.

The 51-page report from City Auditor Andy Hanau says greater efficiency could boost equity by allowing crews to make proactive repairs instead of relying only on complaints, which would increase repairs in neighborhoods whose residents don’t typically complain despite having lots of potholes.

Hanau says his recommendations matter because the city should get the best results possible for the $4 million it spends annually on pothole repair — an amount unlikely to rise much with tight city budgets.

During fiscal year 2023, which ended last June, the city received more than 28,600 pothole repair requests on its Get It Done! tipster app.

City crews say they manage to repair between 30,000 and 40,000 potholes in a typical year, but there is still usually a large backlog — especially after storms.

Hanau’s review of payouts in lawsuits since 2018 found that the city had paid out about $2 million as the result of injuries or damage to vehicles caused by potholes or road defects, such as missing asphalt or sunken trenches.

Bethany Byzak, the city’s transportation director, agreed this week to make all the recommended changes, with some starting within just a few months.

The audit focuses heavily on the need to use mapping software to boost efficiency, contending that the city’s existing procedures lead to lots of extra driving.

Mapping software would let crews repair 27 percent more potholes at no extra cost. It would also reduce their driving distances by 40 percent.

And Hanau speculates that crews would use that additional time to repair unreported potholes in neighborhoods where they are working, which he says could boost equity.

The city’s nine crews are each assigned to one of the city’s nine council districts each day, a setup created a decade ago to boost equity of pothole repair.

Without mapping software, supervisors can only see a list of requests, not their locations. Hanau says they typically prioritize requests reported as emergencies and move on to the oldest requests in order of how old they are.

“Without a map, the supervisor generally selects the oldest requests in each council district, which may not be grouped together, so crews may drive long distances between the requests they are assigned while passing other open requests along their way,” the audit says.

Another key recommendation is that the city spend $174,000 on an additional pothole truck so that city crews can be at full force more often.

The audit found that four out of nine patch trucks were out of service for repairs more than 20 percent of the time during the 15-month period the audit analyzed.

That left the city able to send out only seven or eight trucks on many days, and able to fill fewer potholes. The audit estimates the extra truck would boost productivity 11 percent.

Another recommendation is that the city analyze staffing, with particular focus on what the crews do when there aren’t enough trucks to send them all out on a particular day.

The final recommendation is that the city create performance measures for its pothole repair program, to require more efficient and accurate record-keeping and a shift away from paper records.

The audit notes that the city doesn’t track or monitor efficiency metrics, such as the average number of pothole requests completed by each crew or overall daily, weekly or monthly.

“Adding an efficiency metric would allow Transportation to determine if pothole operational resources are being utilized in an efficient manner and would help right-size the current daily goal of pothole requests for each crew,” the audit says.

The audit praises the city for previous pothole repair upgrades, including boosting efficiency by having crews work four 10-hour shifts instead of five eight-hour shifts. That is more efficient because each shift must start with a trip to get asphalt in Miramar.

Another innovation was the “hot roads” initiative, where crews mill and pave streets more frequently if they historically get lots of potholes.

Bezak, the transportation director, said she welcomed the audit and its recommendations.

“Management has been and continues to be interested in the ongoing improvement of pothole repair operations through the efficient and effective use of available resources,” she said.