Kelly Hutsell

Chad Rodriguez, Lawrence public works employee, helps make permanent repairs to a pothole on Iowa Street just before Harvard Road yesterday afternoon. Public works employees are making similar repairs throughout Lawrence.

After a wet winter, the Lawrence public works department is not just shoveling asphalt into pot holes around the city, they’re shoveling around money as well.

The City of Lawrence Public Works Department does its heaviest work after rain or ice storms, said Bryce Campbell, field supervisor for public works.

“We try to fix problems as quickly as we can,” said Campbell. “After a big rain storm or when ice and snow melt, we go out and fix as many as we can.”

During a day where public works sends its full repair teams out, the cost for worker’s wages are about $2,160 a day for around 20 men. Cold mix, which is a cold substitute for asphalt, costs about $262.50 for five trucks carrying 1.5 tons.

Pothole repair costs the city approximately $6.06 per hole, which is calculated with wages, number of workers and cost of materials after a storm.

This cost per pothole is an approximation and can change with the number of workers out on the street and the difference in wages.

Lawrence pays $2,422.50 a day for cold mix and a full crew of workers in an eight hour day, based on figures provided by Campbell.

Funding for road development comes from taxes, said Debbie Van Saun, assistant city manager. The city uses a 25 cent state gas tax and property and sales taxes to pay for the street division of public works.

“We really try and give each department a budget that will work for them and us,” Van Saun said. “However, we only have a finite amount of revenue.”

Cost-saving possibilities do exist for the long-term, said Jie Han, professor of civil engineering.

“Instead of just dumping asphalt into the hole,” Han said. “They could use a substance called geosynthetics.”

If a small layer of geosynthetic is placed at the bottom of a hole, it can prevent water from eroding the patched hole.

Costs of geosynthetics are more expensive, anywhere from $1 to $5 per square yard, Han said.

The new technology may be hard for cities, which already battle year to year with budgets, to invest in.

The 2005 budget for the street division of public works was more than $2 million.

Compared with at least one neighboring city, Lawrence is spending close to the same amount on street repairs.

Wages cost the City of Topeka Public Works Department about $1,056 for 12 workers. Cold mix costs Topeka $426.80 for four trucks each carrying two tons.

The number of potholes repaired in a day is unknown, said David Bevins, Topeka public works spokesman.

“We don’t really know how many we repair; we don’t really work like that,” Bevins said. “We start on a street and repair all along that street, we think of repair more in terms of city blocks.”

Both public works departments said they did all they could with the money they had, but said it could not do some things right away.

To meet the demand of pothole calls, Topeka started a hotline in which a person could call and notify public works of a problem, Bevins said. The department usually sends a crew within five days for the repair.

— Edited by Kendall Dix