Speaking of anecdotes, I grew up in Pittsburgh, later lived in Ohio, then Michigan. Ohio roads were pothole city and I always thought Michigan roads were good.
I now live in North Carolina and the roads around here are pretty crap. Shoulders either non-existent or crumbling off from rain erosion. Not many pot holes however since we don't see much freeze/thaw compared to Ohio.
I grew up in MI, a civil engineer told me that our pothole issues were due to poor road engineering (things like not laying down gravel so that rain wouldn't collect underneath the concrete && would drain)
ohio didn't seem to have the same issues that we did, at any rate.
Michigander here, can confirm the roads are more pothole than road in some places. The rich neighborhoods get re-paved every 10 years. The poor ones every 20. Some places they'll just fill them in with something that breaks up in under a year. Some places, why even bother with that? Citycars that assume relatively flat roads in downtown centers are misguided here. The state highways are smoother than midtown hubs.
I live in Michigan and the roads are repaved what seems like every other year. After each winter, there are potholes the size of craters on the moon. Very dangerous when everyone is swerving into incoming traffic and slamming on breaks to avoid them.
Well, if Pittsburgh is using it, it is terrible. We have so many potholes (and huge ones). It has become much worse over the last ~5 years. For several months we had a multi-foot hole blocked off by cones until the city could fix it. It essentially was in the middle of a two way road. It was terrible. I see more and more each winter.
But we don't really have potholes in CA, at least not the quantity and quality that I experienced living in PA. It's a minefield there right now, so I would imagine freezing is part of the problem, or at least exacerbates it.
the roads in and around the cleveland metro area have high traffic loads; undergo long periods of fluctuating cold temperatures during the winter; and get nailed periodically by lake-effect snow and ice.
as such, they experience lots of freezing and thawing, experience high traffic from lots of tractor trailers and snow plows, and get coated with de-icing materials (salt, or more recently sand-based grit in some areas). synergistically, these conditions are extremely rough on paved roads, so potholes are ubiquitous and painful.
I've lived in Illinois my whole life (Im in my 40s). I've heard how the potholes are terrible and getting worse as long as I can remember. They aren't particularly bad, nor do they seem to be getting worse.
Observations I've made:
* Snow plows have 2 functions: moving snow and making potholes. The frequency of pothole complaints starts climbing in November and peaks around April (when construction season gets started).
* "that pothole has been there 20 years" typically actually means "that pothole is near where a different one was located at some point in the last couple decades", or "that's a spot where the plows often can tear up the road"
* The people who often complain about potholes on some stretch of road tend to suddenly be the people who complain about how re-doing that stretch of road is a waste of money because "it was just fine before".
* 10 years after a re-pave when some street gets it's first new pothole - "ugh they just redid this road and it's already got potholes? typical $city_name"
I drove a stiffened up sports car in the area for years and the idea that Seattle has bad roads is ludicrous. The city of Seattle literally has an app where you can report potholes. I reported one on my street and it was fixed 2 days later with no further interaction from me.
For comparison, my parents' road in South Carolina is less than 5 miles from a major downtown and has a pothole in it that disabled an ambulance a few years ago. The pothole has been there for at least a decade.
People who live here have no idea how good they have it.
I live in Santa Cruz CA and and deal with terribly potholed roads. The air temperature here rarely gets below freezing, and I've never seen any ice on the roads to indicate that the ground temperature has been below freezing. Clearly something besides the freeze/thaw cycle is causing potholes.
NY state actually maintains its roads pretty well. For a snow belt state they by and large have the best infrastructure with wide shoulders consistently used to minimize damage from plows and heaving. Poorer counties and large cities are less consistently good but the majority of the state's roads are nice. Compared to midwest concrete abominations that are allowed to deteriorate into crumbled messes 20 years past their design life I'll take the continuously improved NY asphalt.
In Arkansas, our roads are nothing but potholes. As soon as they are patched it rains (or as we say in the South, torrential downpours) and the entire road is a pothole again. Very annoying. It's always wet here and humid, btw. At least not as humid as Louisiana though.
And when concrete roads fall into disrepair, they get to be really nasty to drive on. I feel like I'm going to shake my car apart driving on some roads in Iowa.
I can't say that asphalt roads in disrepair are much better, but potholes tend to be more quickly fixed than slightly mis-aligned sections of concrete roads.
Though it's surprising that even a temperate US city would have dodgy road surfaces. In the north and northeast, it's at least understandable with our winters and the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we usually see before spring.
I disagree with this. I live in SF and the roads range from terrible to just-ok. And not just in the city; US-101 is just kinda ok (despite vaguely-regular maintenance), and many local roads I see in nearby smaller towns and cities (South SF, Daly City, Belmont, San Mateo) are -- at best -- just ok. Similar situation when I drive north toward Sonoma.
A major issue in SF proper is that crews are constantly digging up parts of roads to work on pipes or whatever, and then patch them in a haphazard, crappy way. Roads get fully resurfaced rarely. As an example, there's a super nasty patched and re-patched and re-patched and re-patched section of 18th St (between Minnesota and Tennessee) that has been a nightmare for at least 4 years now.
A section of Tennessee between 18th and 19th was resurfaced about a year ago (in part because there was building construction along the road that did heavy damage), but just this past week they were digging up a large section in the center of the road to do some work underneath, and when they patched it up, they as usual did a crap job, so the road sucks again.
I grew up in New Jersey (80s) and Maryland (90s), and the roads were much better maintained in both of those places, Maryland especially.
Another commentor explained how potholes form, but I'll add that Cleveland doesn't have a lot of money and tends to defer maintenance.
When I was living there, road signs saying "Steel Plate on Road" were a common sight. I remember the city fixed a water pipe and instead of re-paving the street, they just left several giant 4ft x 8ft steel plates with corresponding sign for over a year.
Half the world doesn't have pavement... And potholes are almost always created due to extreme weather (very hot -> very cold -> repeat).
My parents recall potholes so bad it'd destroy your car in the 80s. Concrete and the ability to fill potholes have improved over time. There's little reason to assume it's any worse than before, except some roads need replacement... but if you don't replace it (or prior to building the road) it was clearly worse.
Yes, lack of funding plus poor planning. In my town it seems that every time a road is newly paved, 2 months later they're tearing it up to do some utility work, then after a single winter season it's back to how it was with potholes everywhere.
I now live in North Carolina and the roads around here are pretty crap. Shoulders either non-existent or crumbling off from rain erosion. Not many pot holes however since we don't see much freeze/thaw compared to Ohio.
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