Pothole Season Again

We're nearly halfway through winter and so far, the bad weather hasn't been that bad. But this past weekend, I started to notice potholes around town. And if you know anything about how potholes form, it's no surprise. Poorly kept streets form potholes much more often than well-kept ones.

Swede Street, of course, especially between Basin and Elm. Despite the honeycomb pattern of cracks (called crocodile cracks) that formed last winter, and the fact that the street had actually sunk down in several places, and the fact that this is a major traffic route to the Courthouse and downtown, the Municipality refused to do anything more than fill potholes there last year. Luckily we don't have the same geology as King of Prussia or Swede would be one huge sinkhole by now. Even so, the sunken street is dangerous as it is, and after even the minor storms so far this year, potholes are opening up frequently on Swede.

I'll be driving through the West End today to go to an appointment, so I'll check out the streets there, but I'm guessing I'll find more of the same. I seem to remember similar crocodile cracks and sunken paving on Hamilton and other streets that weren't addressed last year because the Municipality decided to only fix potholes.

On the bright side, the new Norristown.org site makes it easy to report potholes. Go to this link, and you can fill in a form to report both potholes and streetlights that don't work. Or you can email streets@norristown.org or call 610-270-0437. You can also download the N-town app for mobile devices and report potholes with your phone. For Android devices, go to Google Play and for Apple, go to Apps Store. Type in Norristown Municipality and it should come up.

But more needs to be done this year than simply filling potholes. Today, Municipal Council is having their annual retreat to come up with goals for the coming year. I hope one of those goals is to properly fix the streets so that we don't have to deal with so many potholes for a few years to come.

If we want outsiders to come to Norristown and leave their money in our restaurants and at our festivals, we shouldn't be discouraging them with poorly-kept roads. So, everyone, now that we have all sorts of way to report the bad condition of our streets, let's do it. Maybe something will finally get done.

In the meantime, be careful driving out there.