Buckle up for a rough pothole season, warns Hamilton's roads boss

A city manager in charge of Hamilton's roads says February and March will be especially heinous for potholes.

Dan McKinnon, the city's general manager of public works, warned people Tuesday that the weather is prime for holes in the road. If our current weather trends continue, he said, then Hamilton will have a bumpy few weeks.

"I am growing a little concerned," he said during a city council budget meeting.

"If (deviations in temperature) continue through the next few weeks, we're going to have a difficult second half of February, early March."

Potholes are caused by a freeze-thaw cycle, meaningwarmer temperatures loosen the asphalt, and then cold temperatures freeze it again.

Damaged roads are an annual challenge here, but McKinnon said last year, Hamilton potholeswere the worst in recent memory.The city even spent nearly a half million doing emergency repairs to Main Street West.

The city also fielded hundreds of damage claims to vehicles.More than a quarter of the claims have come in on Burlington Street, followed byRymalRoad, Main Street West, Aberdeen and Upper James Street.

McKinnon said Tuesday that the city fixes 97 per cent of reportedpotholes, but there may be many more it doesn't know about.

Overall, the public works draft budget for 2019 is $241,780,180 compared to $231,221,280 last year. That's an increase of 4.6 per cent.

The biggest drivers of the increase are a new DARTS employee contracts worth $4,284,000, and the city's 10-year transit strategy, which is $1,784,000.

City council has already approved the capital and rate supported budgets. The operating budget the largest budget, and the one that generates the largest increase in property taxes is typically approved in March.

Other presentation highlights:

• The city will soon offer green burials, and is in the process of designing at area of Mount Hamilton Cemetery to accommodate them.
• Hamilton is still struggling with what to do with a lot of its recycling. China is the largest buyer of North America's recyclable plastics, but the country has become more selective about what it will buy. That means a lot of plastics that used to be recyclable in Hamilton aren't anymore. That includes coffee cup lids and black plastics commonly associated with restaurant takeout.
• The city is developing a flooding and drainage master plan this year. The purpose is to identify areas where the city needs to focus to avoid flooding, which McKinnon says is becoming more pressing in light of climate change.