As Drivers Rumble Along Pockmarked Roads, Officials Look For Solution To Pothole Problem

HOBOKEN, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – As the snow has started to disappear, what has been left behind is a trail of damaged roads throughout the Tri-State Area.

For weeks, CBS2 has been on pothole patrol. Reporter Alice Gainer took Mobile 2 out for a spin on Wednesday in Hoboken, where workers were addressing the problem.

Gainer drove along Washington Street, the main road in Hoboken. It was riddled with potholes.

Earlier, she followed a new machine the city has been using to take care of the potholes. It's said to be faster and will save a lot of money.

The snow may have melted, but the potholes still linger. Just ask motorists.

"It's horrendous lately," one person said.

"Lost a couple hub caps on my car," another added.

However, the machine dubbed the "pothole killer" has been on the case.

The spray injection uses liquid asphalt and is operated by one man as opposed to a five-man crew.

"With a typical crew you'd probably do 50 to 60 if that and here he's been doing 200," said Hoboken Director of Environmental Services Leo Pellegrini.

The City of Hoboken contracted the Pennsylvania company to save time and money.

Normally they would have to first cold patch the potholes with a crew, which is just a temporary fix, and then come back and hot patch it.

The pothole killer is one-stop shopping. It's a more permanent fix, and costs Hoboken $17,500 for 10 days of work.

Whereas last winter the city "probably spent $45,000 on cold patch and that's not including what we spent on hot patch," Pellegrini said.

So how many potholes have been cleared so far? After five days of work, Donnie Harris said around 800.

"Great machine. I wish I invented it," Harris said.

Harris has used the machine in other cities and said we shouldn't feel too bad with all the potholes here.

"Washington has far more issues than you do here," Harris said.

The truck has a GPS that tracks how many potholes he's filled. The city gets a report the following day, Gainer reported.

The city said it is going to contract another truck for next week to expedite the job, because it estimates there are thousands of potholes Hoboken, Gainer reported.

The problem is not much better across the Hudson River in New York City, where drivers claim that this has been the worst season for potholes that they can remember.

"It's been a hard winter, but it's more that it warmed up later in the season so it's all happening at once, so it appears intense," Deputy city Department of Transportation Commissioner Galileo Orlando told CBS2's Weijia Jiang.

In New York City, Orlando said 30 crews are out on any given day and 50 on the weekend working to fix the potholes.

"We use a hot asphalt mix. Not everybody has access to that kind of material," he told WCBS 880's Marla Diamond.

However, the head of the union representing the crews tasked with filling the craters said the system used to keep track of potholes is out of date.

"They find the job is already filled. That wastes time and they have so many potholes right now they could be helping in other areas," Joe Puleo, DC 37 Local 983 President, explained.

Orlando said gradual improvements are being made to the system used to locate potholes.

"There's a whole work system and recognizing where they are, what happened, conditions, there are detailed records of that," he said.

Some roads are so bad that repaving is required, city and state field teams are putting together a list of those and will start work when it gets warmer.

If you see a bad pothole, we want to know about. Post your picture to our Facebook page and be sure to give us the location of the potholes.