INDIANAPOLIS — DPW in-house crews and contractors will take advantage of periods of mild weather to strip-patch pothole ravaged roads with a newly available asphalt product, a more substantive maintenance measure for roadways. Asphalt plants are now open for the season as temperatures warm, and Indy DPW will source the hot-mix asphalt for all strip-patching and pothole-filling operations as dry weather allows this work to occur.
More comprehensive than simply filling potholes, strip-patching requires specialized equipment to mill the entire width of a travel lane before laying down a new surface along an extended roadway segment.
Strip-patching work in DPW’s 2022 program will be completed by both the specialized, in-house DPW Street Maintenance Team (now in its fourth year) as well as by $4 million in construction contracts with vendors Milestone Contractors and Rieth-Riley Construction. Indy DPW’s total capital infrastructure planning for 2022 includes an investment of more than $160 million in transportation infrastructure such as roadways, sidewalks, and bridges.
With asphalt plants now open, DPW’s standard pothole-filling crews will also now primarily use hot-mix asphalt in their operations, leading to a more substantive patch as asphalt binds more completely to existing roadway. Pothole-patching crews (up to 90 workers daily) will be out on streets responding to service requests on every day that dry weather allows.
