SALT LAKE CITY — Spring is in the air, and that means trees, flowers, and plants are blooming, but there is another annual rite of spring in Utah: potholes.
Wednesday, Salt Lake City is kicking off a campaign to patch as many of those as they can, calling it Pothole Palooza. This is the third year Salt Lake City and their street teams will be out and about, in force, trying to patch as many of those road divots as they can over the next 7 days.
Of course, it takes more than a week to get them all, but pothole palooza is a concerted, one-week effort to try and get to trouble spots reported to them by folks who live and work in the city.
Last year, crews filled in more than 6,750 potholes during Palooza week.
For many motorists, the effort is welcome. “They’re going to be busy, there’s a lot of them out there," Kim Robinson stated. "And there’s some that are pretty deep, so it’s gonna take some time.”
Motorcycle riders like Jim Morgan are especially happy: "Potholes are probably a lot more dangerous for motorcycles than they are for cars. Cars they’re an inconvenience; they’ll mess up your suspension, bad enough they might blow out a tire or rims. But if something like that happens on a bike and you go down."
Mayor Erin Mendenhall is officially kicking off Pothole Palooza Wednesday morning. After that, crews will be hitting the streets. Last year, crews wound up filling in more than 38,000 potholes throughout the year. So city officials are deciding to go all out during this first week.
Residents can report potholes either by calling 801-535-2345, or you can create a service request at myslc.gov.
You can also find more information on Pothole Palooza and see an interactive map on pothole progress at slc.gov.
