In a parking lot off 31st Street in Kansas City, Missouri, 27-year-old Katie Cooper is inspecting her gray Nissan for damages. Earlier this spring, she was returning from a nightly outing with her friends when she drove down the rushing Southwest Trafficway artery.
Riddled with potholes, she tried to avoid them. Unsuccessfully, it turned out.
“I just hit this pothole head on,’’ Cooper said with frustration. “And there was one that was just super deep, like, I don't know, six or more inches deep. My car was shaking and making, like, these weird popping noises when I was turning.”
She didn’t know the extent of the damage until the next morning, when a mechanic discovered that the aluminum inside of her tire was bent. The repairs cost her nearly $800.
In 2021, Kansas City began a major push to fill potholes and cracks on some 6,000 lane miles (a lane mile is a mile of one lane of a road.) Their deadline — 2034.
Officials say they're on track, fixing thousands of potholes and cracks more efficiently and effectively than they have in the past with digital technology that reads and logs the condition of road surfaces.
But some of the recently resurfaced roads are already breaking up and experts say some of the work is flawed.
Kansas City's Goal
The city’s street resurfacing program lays out a plan to have over 6000 lane miles repaired by 2034.
Officials say they’re about 25% there, and have promised to fix an additional 400 lane miles by the end of 2025. They say new technology has dramatically improved the process.
Street resurfacing involves applying new asphalt to existing roads to extend their lifespan, to fill cracks and potholes and cut down on emergency maintenance costs.
“Think of this project as an oil change,” said Garret Ross, utility manager for the street preservation unit of the city’s Public Works Department.
“If you don't change your oil every 3,000 miles and you wait till 15,000 miles, it's going to cost you more for repairs than if you were to just maintain that.”
Uday Manepalli, head of the city’s engineering division, works with Ross in street preservation. He regularly gets calls from people waiting for their road to be fixed. “People are saying we haven't seen resurfacing in 20, 30 years in our neighborhood.” He tries to reassure them that is not the case.
For the last several years, Kansas City has been cruising streets to assess damage with a van equipped with cutting-edge technology. This technology gathers digital information about the roads with sensors, lasers and cameras.
Once a stretch of road has been analyzed, the data is then compiled into an "asset management system."
"We know where our assets are,” Manepalli said. “So, we know what type of street, we know the condition of the street."
During this process roads are also graded and scored from 0 to 100.
“Between 90 and 100, that's that zone in which we're doing nothing because those roads are great,” Ross said. “Anywhere from 80 to 90, we like to do crack sealing, which again prevents water infiltration. And then between 65 and 80, we're going to do a micro surfacing.”
That entails an entire new sheet of asphalt.
The grading system sets new quality control standards and is designed to help city contractors work more efficiently and effectively. All newly resurfaced roads must score over 80 percent.
“If it doesn't meet a certain standard or criteria, then there are penalties to the contractor,” Ross said. "Whether we don't pay 100% or (contractors do a) total remove and replace.”
Some challenges
Finding information about the number of potholes on Kansas City streets isn’t easy.
Reports of potholes from residents to the city’s 311 Pothole Tracker Map are radically different than the city’s account of the number of potholes filled.
For example, in 2024, the city counts only 25 reports from residents to the 311 Pothole Tracker Map. But another tab on the city's website indicates the city’s own Public Works Department filled 8,815 potholes, some of those on newly resurfaced roads.
Ross said sometimes newly resurfaced streets will develop cracks or potholes. “There are many factors that could enter into this,” he said. “Somebody could have damaged that asphalt. Somebody (like a utility worker) could have cut into it.”
Aaron Moore, a civil engineer with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, knows well the risks utility workers can pose to infrastructure.
Standing on the recently resurfaced road at 17th and Wyoming Streets, overlooking the Hy-vee Arena in the West Bottoms, he walks on a smooth, newly paved road roughly two blocks long.
“It’s ready for light traffic,” he said.
But as he travels further down the street, he points out some problems.
The asphalt is supposed to slope gracefully toward the curb at the edge of the road, but a rocky dip separates the asphalt from the curb.
“You shouldn’t see certain divides or dips. That creates puddling when you have rain,” Moore said. “The moisture that is sitting there is an enemy because rain will collect there and seep into the asphalt. I’d expect some curb and gutter repair or replacement along with this.”
Elsewhere, he notices a water utility valve hatch, sitting lower than the blacktop of the newly resurfaced road.
“You see the valve in front of us has a dip … so in this instance the contractor didn’t take time to match the grade with the valve.”
He said a car going over this valve could easily cause a driver to lose control of the wheel. He said the city needs to be more conscientious about quality control with it’s road work.
“So just take your time to ensure the small things as they're inspecting, as well as choosing the contractor that the quality of work and the standard of work is maintained,” Moore said.
Driving forward
Back in the downtown parking lot, Katie Cooper took one more look at her car before getting in and heading home. She pointed out another part of her front lower bumper that had been chipped off.
Cooper appreciates the city’s recent work on her street, but urged officials to pay attention to smaller side streets.
“Especially like in the midtown area,” she said. “I feel like some of the side roads and the smaller roads get neglected more often.”
Originally from St. Louis, Cooper said Kansas City is doing better managing city streets than her hometown.
“They definitely care more about the roads here than in St. Louis or Springfield, which is where I've lived before,” she said. “So that's kind of a good feeling."
But after her $800 repair, Cooper said she'll be driving slower and more cautiously, repaved road or not.
