See a pothole? The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) has a new hotline drivers can use to report any craters they see along the state’s roads. Actually, it’s a repurposed old one.
Interim RIDOT Director Robert Rocchio and Gov. Dan McKee on Wednesday announced in a Warwick parking lot the state will use the 5-1-1 line it has had since the early 2000s to field requests made to a live operator. The line will be available 24/7.
“This is all about making it easier than ever for Rhode Islanders to get potholes on state roads reported and fixed,” McKee told reporters. “It’s simple: See it, report it, and we’ll handle the rest.”
The hotline piggybacks off of an already existing traveler information service the state launched in 2005 as part of the nationwide number created by the Federal Communications Commission at the turn of the 21st century.
“It was kind of an evolving technology as cell phones were becoming something the average person would use,” RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin told Rhode Island Current.
But by the mid-2010s, usage in Rhode Island began to drop as smartphones and vehicles came equipped with GPS technology that could alert drivers to any backups and significant road hazards, St. Martin said.
“So for us we’ve maintained the number — it just wasn’t well used,” he said. “So now we’ve repurposed it and put someone behind it.”
RIDOT does not need to hire anyone new or reallocate staff. St. Martin said the department’s constituent services office will monitor the line during the daytime. During off hours, calls will be handled by RIDOT’s traffic management center.
Potholes can also be reported on RIDOT’s website, which now includes a dashboard featuring the number of pothole calls received throughout the year and a map of where they’ve been reported.
Craters that need to be filled are marked orange. Potholes that have been closed are marked green.
As of Wednesday far, the state has received 633 pothole calls with 26 still remaining unfilled by RIDOT.
Over 60% of calls — 388 — came in March, when 3 feet of snow across much of the state began to melt. Peak pothole season is from late winter to early spring, with craters forming after water from melted snow and ice finds its way into tiny cracks and crevices on the road.
“We are working as hard as we can to make sure potholes on state roads are filled as quickly as possible,” Rocchio said.
Assisting the state in its quest is a contracted truck dubbed the “Pothole Killer,” which was onsite for the state’s announcement to demonstrate how it can quickly fill a crater with an asphalt emulsion that blows out the water from the crevice.
“It’s like super glue,” Rocchio said. “One and done — that pothole is out.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
