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Toledo's 'Pothole Blitz' program comes to an end

The city's plan to fill 50,000 potholes resulted in a much larger job.

TOLEDO, Ohio — The great "pothole blitz" of 2019 has come to an end. 

The city pulled workers from various departments for the job, with the goal of filling 50,000 of the area's potholes. Many of these workers will go back to their regular jobs, doing tasks like mowing, sweeping the streets and soon, back to leaf pick-up.

Speaking of leaves, the city plans to make changes to the program this year, so they're not working on that for an extended period of time as they did last year.

"You know, I can't say it's going to be similar to the pothole blitz, but we are going to be asking people to do things a little differently," City of Toledo spokesperson, Ignazio Messina said. " Most importantly, don't put your leaves in the street until you know that the potholes, excuse me, the leaf collection is going to occur. Once that occurs, don't put your leaves in the street because it is likely they won't get picked up."

THE NUMBERS

The total number of potholes filled this year now sits at over 147,000. The city has received complaints about 5,800 of those and has fixed all of them.

Since the "pothole blitz" began in early May, a six-week program with goal of repairing 50,000 potholes, the city has filled over 125,000, going street by street, filling what they saw.

"We have covered every street in Toledo. We wrapped up east Toledo yesterday, we're finished up some potholes near downtown and now, we're going to take potholes on a complaint basis as we had before," Messina said.

HOW TO GET A POTHOLE FIXED

If you see a pothole pop up, or have some in your neighborhood that were missed, call Engage Toledo 419-936-2020. They measure the number by the amount of material used, which has been a major expense in this project.

The program that began the first week of May was set to last 6 weeks. Once crews hit the streets and observed just how bad the problem was, Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz decided to keep them out there until the job was done.

The mayor has said that it's worth the money to get our city streets in better condition, especially since it hasn't cost the city any more money in labor, because all those working are already city employees.

"The city needs to figure out a longer term funding source for our streets. That has not been a secret for Toledo or for any of the major cities in Ohio," Messina said.

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