[Themaintainers] Potholes

[Varun Adibhatla]

Marion,

Thank you for sharing this. It stopped me in my tracks. This is a fabulous
and provocative prompt.

*"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results could find a no better example than Winnipeg’s potholes"*
Winnipeg is not alone. The way we maintain streets in every city is not
only broken, it reinforces an agenda that is at odds with our future in
fundamental ways.
The neurosis of street reconstruction and maintenance is not just limited
to potholes, it extends to the underground.

After closely studying and failing to reform street maintenance in New York
City(1) , I've learned that a larger and more hidden culprit of poor road
quality is uncoordinated excavation by utilities (2).

   - Telecom utilities represent a significant majority of excavation
   activity with the rapid rollout of fiber and broadband (3)
   - Gas utilities and their leaky pipes that emit Methane (84x more potent
   than CO2) often require emergency repairs to avoid gas entering homes and
   blowing them up. These 2 facts by themselves ought to compel communities to
   rapidly electrify.
   - Sewer and Water utilities often have to dig deeper to rehabilitate
   their assets often requiring a more intensive excavation.
   - These fragile and incendiary pipes that also carry pollutants into our
   homes have utilities waging constant war on our streets.
   - While they are required to patch up after the work, the freeze-thaw
   cycle shortens the lifespan of a road.

This perpetual cycle of dig - repair - reconstruct is untenable and costs
cities Billions.
We can do so much better but we don't.

*The Pothole as "a source of perverse civic pride" (4)*
While the pothole is a most visible indicator of local government
performance, countless political campaigns across the world and history
have used the pothole as a proverbial prop to get that delicious photo-op
of "getting it done".
Maintainers! I ask you to reconsider the temptation to get too carried away
by the grandstanding.
I romanticized the pothole as a 20-something fueled with a naive desire to
improve the world, so typical of techbros from my vintage.
 Today, the pothole represents the tip of a rotten iceberg that masks the
"entrenched interests" of utility monopolies, mafia-like corruption of
public spending (5), and outdated and opaque ways of thinking about data.

Smashing through this rot requires us to:

   1. Transition away from pipes that carry combustible and noxious
   pollutants to heat and cook.
   2. Collect, update, and share data about our streets and utilities
   openly, frequently, and securely.
   3. Require coordination of excavations by implementing dig once policies.

Doing so can emancipate Billions towards creating clean, healthy,
resilient, and self-reliant communities.

(1) https://www.hackster.io/argo/squid-street-quality-identification-a43367
(2)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/18/nyregion/new-york-101-streets-repair-and-maintenance.html
(3) https://commongroundalliance.com/Publications-Media/DIRT-Report
(4)
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/nyregion/about-new-york-the-pothole-a-source-of-perverse-civic-pride.html
(5)
https://twitter.com/vr00n/status/1282047411305828355?s=20&t=kYnClUpDgtxC2yhDZcnEIA




On Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 11:55 AM Marion K <mhkilgour at gmail.com> wrote:

> This series of short essays about potholes in Winnipeg was quite
> interesting. I enjoyed the phrase “It’s a good, old-fashioned insolvency
> problem: we own way more pavement than we can afford to maintain.”
>
> https://www.anatomyofapothole.ca/
>
> Cheers,
> Marion Kilgour, P.Eng.
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> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
>


-- 
Thanks,
Varun
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