KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, unveiled on Wednesday its plans to prevent and repair potholes and ensure pavement repairs last longer.
The street maintenance plan will center around three key components: a digital analysis of pavements, increasing funding for street resurfacing projects and stricter excavation planning between the city and utility companies.
The city will use cameras attached city vehicles to conduct the digital analysis of pavements, according to a news release.
This will allow workers to analyze road surface quality, identify cracks and imperfections, and other underlying issues quicker and more equitably.
The city also increased street resurfacing funding from $17 million in fiscal year 2020-21 to $39 million in the upcoming fiscal year.
Through the new excavation planning, utility companies will have too coordinate with the city before cutting into any street.
“These strategic improvements and significant additional investments will make dramatic positive changes in the quality of our streets across the city,” KCMO City Manager Brian Platt said in the release. “This new approach will help us begin to catch up with a chronic, years-long challenge our city has faced."
In addition to the street maintenance plans, the city also unveiled its plans for working pot holes.
The KCMO Public Works Department now has 16 crews made up of more than 60 employees.
Crews are equipped with 10 asphalt trucks, three asphalt trailers and three dump trucks. The city also will contract third-party crews to help patch potholes on major roads so KCMO crews can focus on neighborhood streets.
The city hopes to resurface 100 lane miles of street under the plan.
"Potholes have been a problem in Kansas City for generations," KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas said in the release. "Listening to the public, we are changing that sad fact, relying on data analysis, increased funding, and better collaboration. I am proud of our city workers who continue to make Kansas City a better place to live, work, and drive."
