With drivers lamenting catastrophic road conditions and craters that keep coming back, Montreal is rolling out what it says will be longer-term fixes to its pothole problem.
Officials say after eight years of underinvestment in equipment, the city is now trying to catch up with three new measures to ensure lasting repairs.
“What I’m saying to the citizens: I know that we have frustrations,” said Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada. “I have them. I’m in Montreal. I live in my city. But it’s going to take time.”
In just the past two weeks, the city says it’s recorded between 10,000 and 12,000 potholes per week. At this pace, officials say they’re on track to surpass last year’s numbers.
In March, the city rolled out an initial action plan: negotiating 10 contracts and transferring $2.5 million to boroughs to speed up repairs.
“We’re opening this for many small contractors if they want to bid on this because we have to go manually and we’re going to need a lot of people to do that,” Martinez Ferrada said.
One of those potential contractors, Saad Tekiout with Marquize Paysagement, recently went viral for taking matters into his own hands and fixing the potholes himself. Tekiout says it takes him about five minutes to fix a single pothole. He says the mayor reached out earlier this week to set up a meeting with him and his team about their work.
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“I would like to do a lot of teams all around the city – east, north, west and south – all 24-hour work,” Tekiout told CityNews. I don’t want any ‘I gonna take my coffee, I want to rest.’ Work, work, work, work until the job is done.”
“I salute the engagement as a citizen,” said Montreal’s mayor. “But let’s do this in an orderly manner, in a way that is respectful for the job that we have to do as a city and making sure that we are coordinating the efforts of doing the potholes in the city.”
On the ground, frustration is growing, with drivers saying the problem feels never-ending.
“The other day I was driving Sherbrooke Street, coming back from my sister’s, and I saw a pothole. Luckily it was daytime. Because the depth, at night, it would’ve been catastrophic,” said Kennor Simon.
“They’re atrociously terrible. They need to be repaired,” said Darren McCarrick.
“I recently came from Africa and for me, it’s unimaginable to see this here,” added Ousmane Balde. “People think Canada is paradise. I can’t even take a photo and show this, they wouldn’t believe it.”
